ElvenBound
by FlamesEmbrace
Summary: Ah, yeah, the continued adventures of the abandoned characters Kelyon and Haldor from ElvenBlood. Slash. The original Halfblood fic. :D
1. Default Chapter

ElvenBound  
  
By Ember  
  
Author's Notes: Like the title? ^_^ Yes, this is a little bit o' fiction by me, Ember, giving the remainder of Kelyan and Haldor's lives. If you are confused about who Kelyan and Haldor are, and don't know why there is a smiley after the comment about the title, sign off the internet now and buy ElvenBane by Mercedes Lackey. Oh, and by the way? I never read the third book. Heh.... So this takes place between the second and third, okay?  
  
Warnings- NewFound Glory is blaring- beware! This is likely to impact my thoughts! Ah, and violence, Shonen Ai (guy/guy love, yaoi, call it whatever you like.) sexual content, sexual humor, profanity.... ah, you've got it. ^_^  
  
Disclaimer- None! That's right- I own the ElvenBane chronicles! (Naw, just shitting with you. The topic's copyright to Mercedes Lackey....)  
  
Chapter 1  
  
I can't remember the time or place Or what you were wearing It's unclear about how we met All I know it was the best conversation I ever had To this day I never found someone With eyes as wide as your's I've been searching up and down this coast Overlooking what I need the most Did you notice I was afraid I thought I'd run out of things to say Two more hours until today Burns this away And it starts all over again The sky will never look the same again Until you show me how it could be.  
  
-NewFound Glory, The Story So Far  
  
These plains are long and, no matter what the chronicles say, they are NOT flat. I know- every time one of the cattle spook, the wagon half-falls, half-rolls down the continuous hills, down through the thick grass and over the rocks that are wedged tightly into the thirsty earth. The earth, the humans say, has been thirsty for a long time.  
  
But the hills. Every time we roll down them, something is knocked out of place, something is broken, somebody is knocked over into someone else's lap. But... we'll get in to that later, shall we?  
  
I had at least a few possessions, all of which are broken now, when I went into these cursed plains. Heh. That's a story. How could I be stupid enough to go alone? There had been a fad for rubies, then, and I thought to find some and get rich quick, get a few slaves and recline in luxury until my life drained away. Maybe I could go to Council- but that wouldn't be any fun. No, I just wanted a quick pocketful of gold, and I wanted it easy.  
  
They called me Kelyon el-lord Kresser, but it wasn't worth a rat's ass back then and isn't worth anything, now. I'm just Kelyon, now. Perhaps someday, I'll make up a last name, and live with those two, like the humans and halfbloods. But maybe not.  
  
I rode on horseback, the way the humans traveled, because I could barely cast an illusion and sure as hell couldn't make my way through the plains with magic. Couldn't count on me pulling through with some miracle- I guess you still can't. The horse didn't really have a name, and I suppose it would be redundant to say that it no longer lives. No shit. But it wandered for a long, long time, and I was thirsty and that, too, was Dyran's fault, because of his weather-fucking that screwed up the whole damn world. This is all Dyran's fault.  
  
It was his fault my family's shit. His fault I needed money, his fault I was trudging through the plains. It's his fault the ElvenBane exists, though that- that is an unconscious mistake. It's his damn fault elves grow old and die, and humans have wizard-power, that the alicorns kill things and the dragons can shape-shift. Lord Dyran.  
  
So you understand the story so far- thirsty, tired, far from home, and the damned horse had it's won damned head because I didn't know where I was going any more than it, even if I had the strength to guide it. I didn't even notice the damned dustball until it was on top of me, and then what the hell was I going to do? Cloak it with an illusion to make it look like a rock and hope it walked away, dumbfounded? The horse spooked, and I let it run, because what else was I going to do? But the damned Hell-cattle overtook me, tossing those huge, wicked horns, and... bellowing at the sky and at me.  
  
I didn't even notice there were people on their backs at first, until I took another look. Would you be looking at their backs when you had rock- hard hooves and two-foot horns to contend with? They were humans- after all, they sure as hell weren't elves. Black-pelted humans dressed in bright fabric and shouting commands while bringing spears to bear. There was quite a bit of shouting, yelling, cursing, while they gained on me, shouting in some complex language of grunts and gimmerish, not the proper elven tongue that the bronze humans spoke in. I always had thought that their skin was odd, going gold in the sun....  
  
Those cows, nothing but livestock to the elves, possessed both greater speed and twice the endurance of my horse- it was shot out from under me with a pathetic wail, and I tossed head over heels. When my head cleared, I was surrounded by the humans, all abroad the huge bulls and all looking very, very grave, with their awful, bulky muscles, deep brown skin the color of the darker cattle, black eyes, and long, very serious spears. Very, very serious. And, as always, my magic was failing me- no matter what I threw at these people, it bounced off without leaving a mark!  
  
I couldn't understand what they were saying, but I can confidently report that it almost definitely had "green-eyed demon" in nine out of ten statements. These people just had no words in their vile tongue for "elf," or "lord." Lord would have sounded nice....  
  
Anyway, they gathered up the carcass of my horse, looking at me warily as if expecting me to kill them for touching the body, as if I had some human sentiment; but there was mockery in those eyes, too, mockery that sure as hell didn't fade when I was, before I could blink, put in a metal collar that itched and burned terribly, with a long, cumbersome chain tethering me to the air. I was taken to a gaudy, huge tent and introduced to a human who watched me as if expecting me to stab him for being human. Of course, the temptation was there, and awfully nagging at that.... But of course, I didn't exactly expect to be harried by wild humans on this little endeavor, and wasn't armed.  
  
I was led to another tent, another of these stupid human fabric-manors, with their pointed tips and too-fancy interior, as if someone had gotten it into their mind to send a gorgeous glamorie into a deserted forest. There, as in the black-human's tent, I was not alone- but this time I had unexpected company.  
  
"Welcome to Hell," said the elf, in the proper elven tongue.  
  
His name was Sir Haldor el-lord Braul, and unlike me, he flaunted those meaningless titles with equally meaningless pride. He told me what these people were, assured me they fed us, told me about the illusions they expected us to do, informed me coldly what happened if you didn't, and told me that aside from this, he didn't know WHAT was going on. He had been here for, maybe, a year- when you're nowhere with wild barbarians, you don't exactly know the time or date.  
  
Aside from that, he didn't talk much. Even though he had only been here for a little while, for an elf, I believe the work and captivity hurt him, hurt his mind. Humans often went insane, and Lord damned Dyran was well-known for his occasional bouts of madness. But I had never been trapped with one.  
  
I learned their language, roughly, in about a month- I guess Haldor didn't care much about it, because he didn't bother learning it until it was a handicap not to know it. But I didn't- don't- like captivity. And so was born, then fledged, escape plan one.  
  
After all, why not? This just proved human stupidity; they had locked me to a weapon! Haldor wanted nothing to do with me, but that was fine- I might come back for him, with an army- the leader of the attack against the wild humans! Chain in hand, I bolted.  
  
Or- well, I tried to bolt. I got about halfway through the herds of cattle before the humans saw me, and called out to each other. I wasn't fluent in this tongue, yet, so I didn't catch all the words, but there was plenty of the phrase "green eyed demon" in it. They say that a lot, these humans. With their spears raised, they hounded me, two on those damned bulls and two on foot. Both parties ran faster than I did, after all, I was an elf, not one of the muscular Iron People. I whirled on them, a wide grin on my face, and whipped my chain at the first one.  
  
Perhaps I would have taken him out if he had been a bit closer, if only for the element of surprise. As it was, he intercepted my chain, waiting for the metal locks to wrap around the spear butt he had blocked the strike with, and calmly jerked forward until I sprawled onto the ground. He muttered something to me, something that sounded like "Escape not try, green-eyed demon," as the other of the foot-bound warriors positioned his spear at the back of my neck. With my neck burning in humiliation and the pain of being jerked around by it, I gathered all the power I could unleash, and threw it at the damned human who was pulling my chain off of his spear to drag me by it. It did nothing, or course, on his skin, but his eyes flashed in fury at my attempt.  
  
"Green eyed demon, we something not when fallen we are. Something magic something something Hell." These words were spat with the deepest contempt as he pulled my chain forward, trying to get me to stumble. A spear butt was jabbed into my ribs, and the sharp pain leapt through my torso.  
  
"Shit!"  
  
The human smiled as I began to limp, my eyes burning hate. I hated humans. I hated them all with a loathing as deep as anything I had ever possessed. In that moment, if I had a choice between the War Chief Loki or Dyran dying in a sudden, violent eruption, Dyran would have to wait for his comeuppance. 


	2. Chapter Two

Authors Notes- I continue! You can't stop me now!  
  
This part of the story goes rather quickly, I'm afraid- hold on, because it's not pausing anytime soon! I hope to get a bit more in-depth once I get this briefing over and get on with what happened AFTER Lackey and Norton abandoned these two....  
  
Chapter Two  
  
And everything else is irrevelent To the story so far A coincidence that you look like her from afar Is it true you like to sleep alone Or is it just what you tell everyone And when the world turns over I'll keep my ear to the wall And when the world turns over I'll keep my feet straight on the ground Did you notice I was afraid I thought I'd run out of things to say Two more hours until today Burns this away And it starts all over again The sky will never look the same again Until you show me how it could be.  
  
-NewFound Glory, The Story So Far  
  
I'm not going to talk much about the East and West tents. No matter what, I'm not reliving that. I'll sketch it for you, though, if that's what you want- first, you walk into a tent that smells very much like incense, only, of course, very primitive incense. There is a little gold carving in the center of the tent, but you can't really see any details because before you can get adjusted to the darkness of the light-eating tent, you are dragged out of it by humans who are talking so fast that even though you've been here for a full human generation you can't get your mind to translate it before there is silence. Then these humans come who are all dressed scrumptiously well, with delicate iron jewelry and huge, knotted clubs.  
  
That's the first 'punishment.' Actually, it's the only thing that they actually consider punishment- the rest is 'purification,' and let me tell you, the punishment is better, and to the 'Gods,' may you be forever damned, fuckers.  
  
The purification is a complex chain of torture, one for each of the four elements of Fire, Water, Earth and Air, and let it be sufficient to simply say that you are subjected to the worst each of the elements can muster for you. And the elements are good at torture.  
  
Haldor never made the mistakes I did, by the way, which I feel obligated to mention as this story is, after all, about both of us. Then again, except for the illusions, he rarely left the tent. I guess some of his silence, he blankness, was when he was concocting some new imagery for our 'captors'; now that I had gotten to see Loki die a terrible disease of a wasting sickness that had him vomiting blood until his own daughter had to take up his sword and put him out of his misery, taking the title of 'man-hearted woman' and his rank, I had gotten at least as much comfortable with the situation as to see the irony. It was weak irony, and too obvious, but it was that little bit that got me to sleep every night that it was possible.  
  
Haldor rarely slept. That bothered me- it bothered me to wake up in the middle of the night and see him sitting there, staring into space. He rarely ate, too- myself, I could rarely swallow more than a few bites, but more often than not he just pushed the food away from him, towards me, and returned to the corner of his mind that was where he lived.  
  
Life continued like that for a while, and I must admit I was frustrated. The humans didn't talk much, though I admit that I'd talk to one if they weren't so fucking scared of me. The new War Chief wasn't too bad, though I couldn't see how the humans could trust a female of their kind in a place of power, man-hearted or no. But then, it was their culture. Haldor wasn't scared of me, but he was silent and mad, so it wasn't like he was good conversation. So, when, after two more generations of humans faded away, after Loki's daughter had a son named Kirin, who was an awful War Chief, and the current Priest had a daughter named Cali, who was an awful priestess, and the land grew dry and the crops of the traders died, and the priestess didn't know what to do and the War Chief was too scared to move until it was nearly too late. They thought it was the gods' fury, despite the fact I repeatedly told them that it was Dyran. And Cali had a son named Dirik, and the War Chief had a son named Jamal, and that was when Hell broke.  
  
We were moving north, away from drought and all that other shit, when the halfbloods came. Their names were Lashana, who, I ought to put, was also a hero for the humans and wizards, a demon for the elves, and a prophesy for creatures that dwelled in myths and legends, but we'll get into that later, shall we? Mero, called Shadow by his fellows and the accomplice to the traitor- or, depending on your point of view, selfless hero Valyn. Keman and Kalamadea were dragons, as crazy as that sounds. Haldor and I- or, moreover, I- taught them the human's language, and she blessed us the security in the knowledge that Dyran was blissfully dead, and the knowledge that his last moments were instants of traitorous fury and intense pain. They were something of salvation, these 'feral monsters' that were supposed to be my enemies. They talked to me, which was something I needed- but more often than not, I was staring into space beside Haldor.  
  
Of course, more to the legends, they never shared the work of illusion- weaving. Of course, they saved the whole fucking clan by defeating that bastard Jamal in a fiery battle far above the earth, fought by two dragons shooting through the air above staring, shocked eyes. The humans, who had complex legends about the terrors of the dragons, hadn't expected that two of their 'prisoners' were monsters. Personally, I wasn't that surprised- but that was probably madness.... Anyway, that was not a reason to pin all the work on Haldor and I. Oh, perhaps by the virtue of being elves it was justified in their eyes, but damn.  
  
To add insult to injury, these people who I should have just watched with a smile on my face while they went through 'purification' spirited themselves away without another word to us, with another halfblood I didn't know and another of my own kin, without looking back except for the halfblood Mero, whose eyes widened in pity as he watched us from the rising back of an unfamiliar purple dragon. Because of the priest Dimik they had gotten approval of the Clan, and were gone.  
  
Oddly enough, I felt... I'm not sure, regretful? I missed the company of the halfblood wizards, despite the insecurity they always made me feel. After all, wouldn't you feel insecure about sharing living quarters with creatures that could read your thoughts, given it was a good moment and you had thoughts? However... they WERE people to talk to....  
  
Well, we'll put them away for a while, but don't forget their names. It took a year before I snapped, after that. Of course, there WAS company- in the form of the shifted dragon Myre, but she mostly ranted about how, if she had gotten her way, we would be her slaves, and how she hated her brother and hated "that rat Shana" and how the world was unfair and her mother hated her and the Clan hated her and Lori would be here as soon as she heard of this injustice, with both Keman's and Shana's heads in her jaws. Personally, I found this ridiculously unlikely, but I didn't bother to talk to Myre as she slipped even deeper into madness than I had. Even deeper than Haldor, who seemed disturbed by the dragon, and shifted away from her anytime she drew near him. This got her into another stream of rants, and that, over everything else, got Haldor out of the tent.  
  
It took a long time before I realized what was going on between those two- Myre was trying to seduce Haldor! Probably just enough to get him to kill himself to get the damned collar off her, though she should have known magic didn't work on it, and Haldor trying to get it off would kill Myre in the process. No wonder the elf was revolted by her!  
  
Meanwhile, the dragon-turned-human, too, failed to aid us in our illusions. Perhaps I ought to explain these, as well- We went into a common tent- if all these tents confuse a more proper elven lord, allow me to clarify that the humans lived in tents like we live in houses and manors. The 'common' tent was a gathering place for the Iron People, where they would recline and watch Haldor and I make illusions until our hearts contracted, and our collars burned, and our lungs heaved in desperate attempts to get air. Then we would pause for a little while and then start again. The illusions were frail things- when I first started I tried exhausting myself to make a good, solid sight, in hopes that they would be satisfied, but if you give humans head, like stubborn horses, they take you for every step you'll let them, and right now I couldn't get to the reins. They kept me going until we were finished, and I was half-dead by the time we retreated to our tents.  
  
Only when the human musicians got tired, or the spectators got bored, were we allowed to relax, to go back to our tents. Every night, you understand. Every night with terrible headaches, exhaustion or insomnia, burning collars and aching lungs. In the shadows of the night, I vomited, again and again, until all that came up from my stomach was bitter spit. Humans, you see, work exhaustingly on some lords' manors, but there is little worse than being overworked arcanely.  
  
And so, in the darkness, escape plan two was hatched.  
  
You see, this was not officially "Escape Plan II-" I had futilely attempted Plan I so many times and in so many versions that counting proved worthless, futile and stupid; however, as for an entirely new plan, that was a novelty.  
  
Illusions didn't fool these humans, if they weren't expecting them. This group of humans was small- I couldn't just wear the skin of one of them and hope not to be noticed. But I doubted that they would look too closely at the cattle.  
  
So I snuck out, late at night, and into the stinking masses of cows, each beast watching me warily. Their two-foot horns, stupid, large eyes and hard- looking horns warned me to stay away from the bulls- while the cows and steer also had the huge, curved horns and hooves, they were by far the more placid. I sat on a rock, while the dark-skinned humans walked by, wishing I didn't half-glow in the moonlight and darkness. Quickly, I spun illusions. I was a bull- no, a steer, that would most likely be safer, I wouldn't be ridden if Myre attempted to bolt again. I sat, alone on the cold, hard rock, wishing I at least had Haldor to talk to, even if he wouldn't talk back. The cattle shifted, moving, grunting and chewing.  
  
Someone was running. Myre? Most likely- but it sounded too heavy to be the light-footed human-dragon. I pushed myself against the rock, closed my eyes, and prayed...  
  
"There!" I winced, and the footsteps drew closer. Let them pass.... "By the mares! You! Green eyed demon!"  
  
Shit! I broke my own illusion, bolting through the herds as fast as my feet would take me, feeling freedom slip through my fingers again.  
  
Poor Kel-chan... ah, well. ^_^ Two days till my birthday on the 6th! YAY! 


	3. Chapter Three

Note- I have, perhaps, twelve chapters of this done, over several months. I didn't know anyone was reading this, until Madoka- me sister- happened to inform me someone had reviewed. Wow! So, yeah, I'm updating- first, altering the chapters to update THEM, then updating the processed things. Yes, I have read the third book. However, I like my futures for them more, so there. ^_^ The author's notes I wrote as I wrote the chapters, so below is the original, and all of the chapters have the original ones. That's why they concern dates long past. Enjoy! *  
  
Poor Kel. Anyway, on with Chapter 3. Quick change in perspective; if you're wondering, yeah, that's gonna happen quite a bit. Well, it IS both Kelyon AND Haldor's story. Some things unfold, this chapter's gonna be longer, if you're pissed at the tiny little samples in chapters 1 and 2.  
  
It's my birthday(6/6)! YAY! I'm now Fourteen! Now, I'm an annoying 14 year- old fan-fic writing idiot, instead of a lesser 13 year-old fan-fic writing idiot! Review? As a birthday present?  
  
Chapter Three  
  
God money's not looking for the cure God money's not concerned with the sick among to pure God money let's go dancing on the backs of the bruised God money's not the one to choose Head like a hole Black as your soul I'd rather die than give you control Bow down before the one you serve You're gonna get what you deserve Bow down before the one you serve You're gonna get what you deserve!  
  
I woke up from light sleep, blinking in the darkness. Night seemed even darker here, where no amatuer elves like Kelyon were casting mage-lights everywhere, where no innkeepers were lighting up the fronts of their shops to display their human wares, and no Elven Lords were boasting their power by illuminating the walls of their manors.  
  
My name is- was- Sir Haldor el-Lord Braul, though my roommate insists that in captivity, it's Haldor. I suppose he's right; the humans all, with the exception of Dirik, the head preist, call us the mutual title of 'Green- eyed Demon.'  
  
This life I led, this one I'm telling you of- it was terrible. The memories still are, as they emerge fresh in my mind. No one would understand, no well-brought-up elf, no ignorant human, no sniveling, arrogant halfblood, would find it in their minds, in the long-buried instincts, the pain I felt. Kelyon had it bad enough; at least neither of us came from anyplace worth missing. We both led the same lives with the same work, the same tent, the same plain fare that I rarely ate. But he had found his former life more bearable than I had; while he had trudged it out, I had turned to other sources, sources that I, like a hopeless soul from one of the old human religions, would pay for in this current life.  
  
The odd, useless trinkets smashed in the caravan's bumpy trod, lack of sex bunched up in my lower self, and, worse of all, cut off supplies of drugs tore at my mind like the talons of millions of dragons.  
  
Dragons.  
  
Myre was gone. A quick analyzation proved Kelyon missing, as well. Self- pity would wait until I found out what had happened- while Kelyon's relative unattractivness had protected him from Myre's advances, he found the dragon as revolting as I did, and most certainly didn't take her on any escape attempt. At least, I doubted he did. But then, Kelyon got lonely easily.  
  
I sat alone, in silence, as I often sat, not really thinking about anything, waiting for sharp elven ears to pick up the sounds that would tell me what was going on. Indeed, I heard footsteps coming to the tent- four sets of strong, able, human-footsteps, and one of faltering, half-dead footsteps. The tent flap was pushed open, and Kelyon- at least, a red, bloody mass resembling Kelyon- was shoved in. Anger and bile arose as one, and I reached out to touch Kel's back- tracing raw, red welts and cuts. His back was the worst thing, but blood drenched all of his pale skin. It was something Jamal would do; I supposed some of his stronger supporters were the ones chasing Kel, for the current warchief wouldn't do this, human or not. Damn them.  
  
I gathered all of whatever meanger power I had into my hands, which glowed, very faintly, as I willed Kalyon's flesh to reattatch, strand by hair-thin strand. It wasn't easy- it was exausting, in fact- and if Kelyon was comprehensible, it would be terrible agony. But it was working- the blood stopped flowing, and finnally, red welts were the only things visible of Kel's escape attempt. I took my hands away, willing Kelyon to rise, which he did, hesitantly. He looked up at me, then looked away, choking out a bitter thank you.  
  
"Myre," he growled. "She told them I was going to try and escape. She told them how. I- don't know how she found out, but.... Damn her! Damn her to the lowest of the hells!"  
  
The oddest thing- I wanted to kill Myre. Oh, I had wanted to kill her before, or at least, I though I had. When she pressed herself against me and tried to force herself to cry, knowing damn well that my attempts to modify the chain would kill me, when she wolfed down all the food or ranted for days on end. But now- now I wanted to kill her, tear her throat out with my teeth or my fingernails or anything, if she would fucking pay. The headache associated with any spell at all arose, and Kelyon's eyes darted back to me, pity and worry in them. I held up a hand, telling him I was fine, and closed my eyes, trying to ignore the pain.  
  
"We're fucking getting out of here," he hissed, a hand reaching out to help me up as he stood. "We have to... dammit, if Myre's listening...!"  
  
"She's not," I assured him, my tongue cooperating only when I forced it to move. "Wizard-magic."  
  
Kelyon thought for a second, then nodded, grimly. "That was how she knew that I was gonna bolt, and how. That's true, I suppose. Dammit. But- the humans here have immunity to that, right? I heard the halfbloods talking about it, once. How did it work? Could we learn it?"  
  
I paused, reaching back into my memory until the headache got too bad. Then I nodded, deciding to go with Kelyon on this one. If he was right, then we WOULD have something over Myre- not all of these humans could possibly have wizard-powers, after all, so that could hardly be a requirement. ____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
Myre was sleeping soundly, her chest rising and falling with her breathing. She made a pretty human; but then, if one has the power to change one's features, one may as well make oneself as attractive as possible. I lifted her chain, smiling as Kel carefully sat the human-dragon up. Together, we shifted her to the back of the tent, and I tied her chain as securely as possible to the wooden plank. She was leaning, her back on the wooden pole, with the chain on her collar wrapped around the pillar and fastened, tightly, with a peice of rope.  
  
"She might be able to get up," warned Kelyon, as I sat down and concentrated. The other elf was casting the nessisary illusion; I was just lending him power. Shana had given us the details of that spell, though it was lucky Kelyon had listened because I, personally, couldn't have cared less about her escape from whoever it was she had escaped from.  
  
We had figured out, that night, that humans obviously had more control over their minds than we had, wizard powers or no, because there was no way I was going to build a wall over my head. So we had decided for more mundane solutions- we would tether the damned girl to the pole and leave her there. We wouldn't give her time to pry- that night, we were leaving.  
  
"It won't matter, if she gets trampled," I growled, hopefully. Kelyon laughed- he had an odd laugh, too light and too cheerful for his situation.  
  
"Amen," he laughed, and his mind brushed mine to take my power. The plan was simple- he would 'borrow' some of my strength, not enough to leave me exausted, but enough to cast a decent illusion. The Iron People weren't fooled by illusions, but I doubted they put as much faith into their cows. The illusion would be of three or four alicorns; with luck, the cows would bolt, distracting our captors.  
  
The power was taken from me- I gasped for breath but didn't feel TOO worse for wear, as Kelyon closed his eyes. And eternity passed... forever.... The elven lord gasped, and leaned over, and hoofbeats were heard, paniced, in the distance. A hoarse human shout.... a scream.... the unmistable sounds of stampede, horror, fear. Kelyon was still slumped over, Myre was beginning to stir. I bolted for the tent, looking over my shoulder at Kelyon, then outside.  
  
The huge herd of war-cattle were charging for the tents of the people that always protected them- or, at least, they had probably thought, at the beginning of the chase, the people would protect them. Now they were running, charging, screaming. The incentive was obvious- a huge herd of alicorns, eighty or ninety, charging the cattle. White and black, they tossed their little, thin heads, blinked their huge, orange eyes, lashed out with their claws hooves, and sped after the cattle like wolves on a chase. At first I thought it might be real alicorns; could Kel really do anything that BIG? Then one of them went through it's brother, and I snapped out of my stupor and turned around, grabbing the unconcious Kelyon and dragging-carrying him with me outside. One arm around his shoulders, another around the small of his back, I dragged him along the wet, dew- covered ground as the sun set and made the west turn a bloody color, like that of fire.  
  
I ran for the trees, away from the hoofbeats and tossing horns. I ran as fast as I could, half-blind, dragging Kelyon with me and tearing away from shouting humans. Into the woods I ran, my eyes closed against scraping branches, my feet in agony as sticks and stones embedded them into the skin that thin sandals had abandoned long ago. I hadn't even known these woods were HERE; we must have gone farther south than I thought.  
  
I ran until the sounds of panic and fury were as faint as the crickets emerging and singing to the rising moon, and then I dropped Kelyon onto the cool, wet ground and collasped to my knees, gasping for breath and closing and opening my eyes until I could see without the objects in my sight slipping closer and further away. Then I rose, slowly, to my aching feet, and looked down at Kelyon, who was starting, slowly, to stir. I looked back towards the camp of Iron People, trying to control the cattle now that the alicorns had dissapeared. I looked into the woods, and blinked as I realized we had no food, no water, no shelter, and no direction to go in. And I thanked the gods. We were free. 


	4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four  
  
Do you have the time To listen to me whine About nothing and everything all I want I am one of those Melodramatic fools Nerotic to the bone no doubt about it! Sometimes I give myself the creeps. Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me It all keeps adding up I think I'm cracking up Am I just paranoid Or am I stoned?  
  
~Green Day  
  
I woke up on my back in the dew-ridden woods, saw Haldor not far away, building a fire- I hadn't known he could make one- and added up the facts.  
  
Great good gods. We had escaped.  
  
I had thought this plan through, inspected every detail, picked at every little thing until there was hardly any plan left, but all thoughts of sucess I had shoved out of my mind. There had been no time. Now it all came back, with clarity and thrill- then an awe-inspiring fear. I had no clue of what to do, now! There was no food, no water, no fire!  
  
Well, there was fire. And there was water- I could hear a stream flowing not far away. And there was food, if we could get to it, if we could fish or hunt like common humans or halfbloods. Being common WAS preferable to being dead, after all. Of course, being skilled was another thing altogether, but I'd survive. I hoped.  
  
"You're awake," growled Haldor, moving aside so that I could sit next to him beside the fire. It felt good to feel the cold and damp slide off my skin and heat sink back into my bones.  
  
"That was stupid," I said, though I had a pretty good feeling he already knew. He HAD dragged me out here, after all, I guessed. "Three or four good alicorns would have scared them, but I'd never had so much power; I wanted to do something with it."  
  
Haldor snorted, and looked around. The sun was rising, and I guessed that if there was a time to hunt, this was it. I was filthy, though- covered in blood and mud and dew and grass. Haldor looked me up and down, then shook his head, and gestured towards where the water was sounding.  
  
Oh. Yeah, that would make sence. One WOULD bathe in water, wouldn't one. I left, walking to the stream, and winced at how cold it looked. How did the humans DO this? My clothes peeled off of me, my shirt especially considering how torn it was. Being dragged through the wilderness was NOT good for me.  
  
The water was as frigid as it looked- at first I stood on the banks, letting the cold water numb my feet for a second, and trying hard not to think about what little Kelyon would think of the water. Then I decided it would be best to get it over with before I had to cut off my feet, and walked until I was waist-deep in the water. Grabbing sand, I grated it over myself and tried not to think about the soft sand I had back in the elven lands. Blood and grass took off into the current, dissapearing into the water as it rushed along on it's little mission.  
  
When I was, at long last, some semblance of clean, I left the cold water, shivering as I put my clothes back on, where they stuck to my flesh, soaked through. I shook out my hair, long and tangled, and walked back to where Haldor and the fire were.  
  
Haldor had obviously not been as idle as he used to be, now that he was no longer trapped inside a tent. The matted mass of his hair had been sheared off, leaving it only a few inches long, not even reaching his shoulders. It wasn't a bad look for him, actually; much better than a fox tail-shaped lump on his back. He sat on his heels, a long, steel knife tracing playfully over a stick that was beginning to look a lot like a spear, his concentration evident. Kind of funny- I had never seen a wooden spear do much good, and I didn't expect it to, but it would feel good to have something that might even do something, if we were lucky. He looked up in alarm as my foot broke a wet stick on the ground, then acknoleged me and turned his attention back to his makeshift weapon.  
  
Maybe we would survive this, after all. ____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
Let me explain fashon to you. Elven fashon is not a consistant faith; for creatures with near-eternal lifespans, my kind were never able to stay focused on one thing without it being abyssmally entertaining. Clothes would go from pastel to vivid, coy and innocent to rashly revealing, loose and baggy to second skins. Hair would go from being fashonably long to fashonably short, then right back to long so that, to the amusement of those at the head of fashon, like Lady Triana, those who followed fashon to the letter and hadn't the magic to repair their damage were left in the dust. I had never played that game; I wasn't important enough to be acknowledged, anyway. I never cared much about it, but I didn't cut my hair. For an elven lord, I wasn't among the 'attractive;' my hair was my own little indulgence, my vanity. I spent hours trying to battle off snarls and combing it out, after we had escaped- but for the rest of fashon, I couldn't care less. Haldor never did, either- what others thought of him never bothered him, I suppose. He couldn't care less about his ruined clothes, short hair or scars, and now that he was the only one to see, neither did I.  
  
I had more important things to worry about, after all.  
  
Lured by the wiggling, drowning worm, the silver fish drifted nearer, hesitant to draw that near to the shore. The worm wriggled whenever he started to bolt, alerted by shifting on the land, and he inched closer, closer to his food. More fish had started coming; if he didn't hurry, the worm would be eaten. I knew how that felt, and played on it, danced on it. Come on, little fishy. Come on and eat...  
  
At last, he swam over, nosing at my worm. I banished the illusion and pulled on my rope, jerking the net from settled rest to sharp action in a cloud of disrupted sand. I pulled the net out of the water, then dropped it back in as it lay, still and empty. Nothing.  
  
Two dead fish, gutted by the wooden knife I had made, already lay on a dried leaf the size of my head. I had wanted to fish in order to get something to dry, and eat later, but hell. After some fifty tries, it wasn't worth it anymore. I took the fish and walked back to our 'campsite,' a more primitive hold even than that of the Iron People. A fire, a hastily-built lean-to, and a few piles of clay for eating fish. Haldor was already there, leaning over a dead rabbit. He, too, was now an expert at luring beasts with illusions and glamories and hunting them with ease. The little white beast was now nearly skinless- whether or not we were hunting geniouses, flaying beasts was still messy, bloody, and never produced strips of skin bigger than one's hand. Fish was easier- I took the smaller of the two, wrapped it in clay, and threw it in the fire, doing the same with the other. When they were finished, the skin would stick to the clay, and we would eat the meat.  
  
It had been less than a week since we had fled the humans, as I thought with wonder. Less than a week, and we had adapted as fast as one of the creatures themselves! We were sheltered, fed, watered, and thriving, as well or better than with the humans!  
  
At last, a disgruntled Haldor stuck the little meat from the rabbits onto stakes and gave me one, which I put onto one of our primitive "plates" until I had fished out our little cooked stones. With the same stick I had used to pull our fish from the fire, I smashed the clay and pulled the hardened lumps from the cooked flesh. Haldor took one, and we ate, silently, until we were full. Or as close to full as one could get on a purly meat diet.  
  
It had never occured to me that, if I was ever living out in the wilderness like in the adverture-filled tales that enraptured me when I was very young, I would be eating only meat. I had always supposed I would live on a purely vegetarian diet, eating the flavorless forest-plants. It had never struck me that one learned how to hunt with some ease, compared to finding out what plants were edible and which ones poisonous. It had also never occured to me how much elven diet seemed to thrive on vegetables- I always went to sleep with something missing in my stomach, and woke up with only a little less strength than the last night.  
  
"What are we going to do next?" I asked Haldor, doubting he would answer.  
  
As always, I was right. He simply glanced at me, shrugged, and continued eating. I looked back down at my own picked-over dinner; it wasn't bad food; I just wished for a bit on company.  
  
"We can't live out here forever," I pointed out for the seven-millionth time. For the seven-millionth time, he shrugged off the question, ignoring the fact he was elven and had a perfectly good elven tongue. I decided to press the issue a bit. "How far away is home, do you think?"  
  
"Far," he replied. "Too far to walk."  
  
"What do you estimate are the chances of stealing one of those war-cattle?"  
  
Haldor glared at me as if I had suggested something I knew I had no right at suggesting; as if he knew I was jesting and thought the topic had no business in our discussion.  
  
"Okay, what do you think we should do?" I asked him. He shrugged and bit into his rabbit; I nibbled on mine. It was a bit tough and gamey, but hell, it wasn't beef. If I never ate beef again, it would be too soon. It actually tasted quite a bit like last night's rabbit. And not completely unlike the three days before that's venison. With a grimace of distaste at the memory- deer carcasses didn't fare well in the sun, especially not if you find them dead and have to eat without knowing it's exact age, and have to continue eating it until you catch something else, I pushed the last of the rabbit around on my "plate" and picked up my fish. This, too, was getting tiresome, but it was still better than beef. If I never ate beef again....  
  
I wasn't hungry, anyway. I left what remained of my meal by my log-seat, and went to the half-toppled shack we lived in, taking the sleeping pad next to Haldor's and slipping under the torn deer-hide that we shared. It was very uncomfortable sleeping under the same blanket, despite that we slept fully clothed- he still felt so warm, so alive...  
  
It was odd. But Haldor wasn't finished with his meal, yet, and I intended to be asleep before I could feel his back against mine, his pulse down my spine. I turned over, watching a spider scurry across the grassy floor of our lean-to, intent on a mission beyond human perspective.  
  
I wondered if Myre had survived the stampede. I hoped not, I honestly did. I hoped she had been trampled to nothingness by a million angry, cloven hooves, pummeled to oblivion chained to the wooden pole. It would serve her fucking right, you know. And how immensely satisfying....  
  
Between Dyran, freedom and Myre, I could get to like this year!  
  
I wondered what was happening with the Wizard War. If Shana and her friends had thought that it was the end, that a greater, more terrifying war wasn't inevitable, she was sadly mistaken. I didn't think she believed that, which was either good or bad, and I couldn't decide which. Did I WANT my kin to win? Shana had deserted Haldor and I, but then, the elves hadn't looked for us, or rescued us, and every of those damned lords would do the same thing; I wasn't blind. At least the halfbloods were civil, and talked, and were, for a while, at our position, the lowest of the low. It felt good not to be the lowest damn creature while being surrounded by humans, rest assured of that much.  
  
The elves had magic- but then, so did the halfbloods. The elves had clear numerical advantage, but most of my kin were mages my equal or children; our true weapons consisted of humans, and their shear numbers. But the wizards had a weapon, too- the dragons. If there were a hundredth of as many dragons as humans, than the wizards had the advantage, going by the powers that the legends gave the flying lizards.  
  
The spider had crawled up the ragged wall of our primitive shelter, and I caught a glisten of silk by the light of the fire. At once, a few footsteps alerted the little creature of human presence, and I closed my eyes, not wanting Haldor to know I was awake, and ask about my thoughts. Not that he would, but it was more instinct than anything else, I guess. I heard the footsteps pause, hesitating for a second in the "doorway." Then I heard Haldor's sigh, and he knelt behind me and stretched out. I knew he wasn't asleep- I could feel him shifting as he contemplated something of great or little or no significance. And then he relaxed, and I went to sleep. ____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
I woke up at dawn, to find myself alone. Haldor always woke up too early, and was looking to the east with an expressionless face, I knew even as I slowly sat up. All traces of the spider were gone, though I didn't look; I simply noticed when there was no web on my right. Then I rose, untangling myself from the hide that served as a blanket and walking out to the deadened embers. Haldor would be useless until noon, so I built the fire up from the subtle glow on my own. We had learned fast not to let the fire so completely out; neither of us were anything after a fire-spell, and the lack of firestarters in the woods was appalling. So even in the heat of midmorning I built up the fire, leaving Haldor to tend it, absently, until I returned with more wood and a mind to go fishing.  
  
A disturbance in the woods stopped me, and snapped Haldor out of his post- dawn stupor. A huge group of something, something that muttered to itself in a gutteral, farmilliar human tongue...  
  
"Shit!" I cried, running to throw dirt on the fire before the smell alerted the humans. Haldor walked over to the lean-to, demolishing it as completely and silently as he could. I threw the ashes across the campsite, while Haldor grabbed what little food we had saved and wrapped it in our make- shift blanket. The footsteps drew closer, and I realized with dread that they weren't footsteps, they were hoofbeats.  
  
"There!" cried a human voice.  
  
You don't understand, I think, what it's like to see your life flash before your eyes. In my case, it was very depressing, and completely terrifying. I had only just gotten my freedom back, and I fucking WAS NOT going to lose it again. The hoofbeats picked up to a run, and Haldor charged after me as I bolted. Whether it was newly-developed good sence, or some deeply-buried instinct, I ran for the thick woods around the river. Eventually, crossing the river would mask our scents; for now, it was enough that the thick brush slowed the war-bulls down.  
  
We ran through the trees, avoiding the branches that tore at my newly- groomed hair, losing themselves in the length. Haldor was at my elbow, his eyes, for the first time, filled with an emotion; a terrible, horrid fear. All-emcompassing, wide green eyes with the cat-pupils so thin as to be hardly noticable; as if his whole eye was simply a green abyss. We ran, away from the storming cattle, losing them as we went thicker into the forest. When our feet began to bleed, we dropped into the river, keeping our heads under until the current carried us back behind our pursuers. Luckily, the river doubled back not far from where we had dove into it; we were not carried back to the Iron People's camp, but further into the forest.  
  
We pulled ourselves out of the water after an hour or so of coming up only to breathe, our clothes soaked through and our skin hanging in tight little wrinkles. I shook out my too-heavy hair, closing my eyes against the flying droplets. Then we stood, as if by an unananmous decision, and ran again, away from the river and along it, until our lungs tore at the air like a dragon's wings and we fell, dripping and crying from relief and fear, to the embracing earth. 


	5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five  
  
Review.  
  
Can you feel it I'm not like you anymore! I can't see, I can't breathe See you quiver Like the dogs on the streets! Looking down on those who beat you! It's a bad religion From a broken nation! It's a contradiction And I can't take it anymore!  
  
I woke up to the loud thunder of the storms that passed over the plains, ignoring it until it continued with monotonous inflection, loudly and heavily, obscuring everything but my own panicked breathing. I jerked back, meeting resistance at my throat- my collar! Someone had chained me, like a fucking dog! I allowed myself a moment of indugling fury, until the thunder- the stampede!- grew so loud that I had no choice but to fight my tether.  
  
I tried molding the chains, but, as usual, the dragon-magics did nothing. I cursed until my voice grew shrill and my throat ached, then turned my attention to scupting the wooden beam. The only problem was- if I did get it thin enough to snap the wood, the tent would fall on me. If I was helpless, I would be stomped into the ground.  
  
The hoofbeats were so loud, now, that I couldn't even hear my soft, half- concious cursing as I stroked the wood, compiling the density to the lower portion of it, making one weak spot thin as the tips of my claws, but backed beneath it. When the tattoo shook it and it threatened to fall on it's own, I took a deep breath, holstered my chains, and pulled backwards, propelling myself for the entry-flap of the tent.  
  
Only when I flew outside, the chain landing heavily on my stomach, did I notice the obscure absence of the two elves, Haldor and whoever the other one was. At that point, if someone had reassured me that they were pounded flat into the earth, now, I would have been content, uncaring- the problem was, it was altogether too likely that the two had instigated the stampede themselves. That they were running free, having tied me to the wooden plank and left me to die. For that- for that they would fucking die! They and those two, Shana and Keman, who also would taste my claws before the year was over.  
  
However.... the elves would be more fun. If what the elders said dragon- claws could do to elves was true, than it could be very rewarding to hunt down Kelyon and his little friend. Perhaps... perhaps I could lead the elves to Shana's doorstep in the process.  
  
These were my thoughts as I bolted from in front of the herd, and while the humans were busying themselves with their cattle they couldn't have noticed me slip into the forest nearby, to the west, guessing that the elves would go to the stream in the east. I didn't want to hunt them yet. Not yet.  
  
Speaking of huning, I was currently drained, needing the nourishment of freshly-killed game. And the cattle were tame, so trusting of human hands. Perhaps it would be worth hanging around for a while. ____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
Three weeks later, I had moved on, while the humans were still hunting for the elves, thinking for certain that they were killing their cattle at record rates. Certainly, more died than one human needed, even if that human was a shape-shifted dragon. And they WERE being killed by magic.  
  
Little did the stupid little two-leggers know that the magic was of the greater pedigree, not the little mutts' fiddling. It was the magic of an elven-lord, and I was deploying it.  
  
Stupid Keman! Had he truly thought that I would stay in the little human body he had given to me? The elves had the right idea- those with power should use it. I was an elf, for the time being, though one tough enough to live in the woods. Spells could not work well with the collar on, and the iron burned my throat, but it was the price I would pay. I could pay such a price for revenge.  
  
I traveled fast, for an elf. I found the river nearby, and conjured a boat from the nowhere I could control. I'd see if Kelyon and Haldor could beat that! I didn't need feed- I could pluck it right from Lord Aelmarkin's table, if I had wanted to. I never saw the elves along the banks, though- perhaps I had overestimated their intelligence, and they had wandered with abandon to die in the wilds. I hoped not; I still wated to teach them about dragon-claws before they died.  
  
In this way I rode the river, thinking with a certain malicious irony that this was how I had gotten here, in the first place, along these twists and turns, as a fish following Lorryn and Rena. They would have to die, too- though in fact, I had no true fury with them; perhaps they would serve better as my first, and personal slaves. Keman could gather all the allies he wanted; when they saw the difference between living in primitive encampments with animals and never worrying about pests like itchy shedding skin, hunger, thirst, or insects, they would see who was smarter, who was the REAL shaman- Myre or her impudent brother.  
  
The boat ran swiftly over the water, and I quite enjoyed the following hours- wind in my hair, long and beautiful as any elven maiden's, the water splashing over the hull but not hitting me in anything denser than a light mist. Yes, this would be fun. I would tell them where the Citidel was. Tell them where the wild humans were, the weaknesses of mother and Keman, of Father Dragon and the duller of the elders. Fire and Rain- I could get rid of this damned chain, and show them a true dragon! Then, when the rebels and Lashana were dead, I would take over the elves, humans and halfbloods, making my OWN little army of slaves. That was when the surviving rebels admitted their idiocy and came crawling back. They might even get a slave or two- if I had tired of Lorryn or Rena's services in preference of someone younger, with more zest- then they could have the aging throw-outs.  
  
Even now, the elven city loomed overhead. With a vicious grin and what I hoped was a graceful gait, I entered the walls, chains and all. ____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
We had walked for a long time, dripping wet and staggering, trying to stand on our own and failing, being dragged along by the other. The feeling of a hand on my back still buzzed with an electronic feeling, shifting along my spine. We had run and run and run until every breath was a hard-won battle, every step agony. I was limping, leaning heavily on a limb, a few steps ahead of Kelyon.  
  
"Slow down." Kelyon limped up to me, eyes round and chest heaving. I looked away, trying not to hold onto his eyes or him at all- but why the hell not? When we were trapped, yeah, there was the fact that I got pissed at the humans who hurt him and Myre who told them to, but it was getting absurd. Like one of the elven romances, only... well, the obvious difference, of course, and the fact that we were currently the most sorry elves that ever lived.  
  
I didn't notice I had made an apolegetic-sounding grunt until he nodded, leaning against a tree for support as he gasped in air. We had to eat more than just half-cooked meat, and maybe get more sleep, or we would waste away. It wouldn't work to die right after escaping.  
  
"How far away do you think we got?" asked the other elf, avoiding my eyes, as well. He had probably guessed what I was thinking, I thought with horror, as absurd as it was. I almost forgot the question as my mind ran in circles of revulsion and It.  
  
Kel, luckily, was not expecting me to answer- I hardly ever did, so it was good he didn't have too high expectations. He answered himself. "I think we're just about out of the danger zone," he said. "A few more miles, I guess. Haldor?"  
  
I acknowledged him, trying not to look his way- by the ancestors, he might have been bloody beautiful by human standards, but to an elf, he truly was not. Still, he was.. beautiful, in a contradictory way. A strange way, a wild way, a new way. Beautiful.  
  
"Haldor?"  
  
I jerked out of my reverie with a start, glad for a the interruption. The Great Lords, what the hell was going on? I couldn't be in love with KELYON, he was simply.... him. Was that it? Did I actually think I was in love with Kelyon? Ancestors, how thick could I be? He was nothing, someone I wouldn't even acknowledge once I was back with the elves. True people, not Halfbloods or wild humans or wild, starving, bruised Elven Lords. I couldn't-  
  
"Haldor!"  
  
"Yeah?" I grunted, jumping. He turned to me and smiled, a sad smile, haunted by eyes shadowed with insanity. Beautiful. Beautiful in the way an alicorn was beautiful, in a mad, dangerous way.  
  
"Do you think these might be the woods the Halfbloods were talking about? The ones they built their Citadel in?" His question took me by surprise. Yeah, it was true they had come by river. It was true there was a forest where they had come from. But had they come from THIS forest?  
  
What the hell would happen if the HALFBLOODS caught us?  
  
"I don't know," I said honestly, shaking my head. Looking back the way we came, I saw the beaten brush where we had plowed a path, a long road leading back to the river, one end leading to the elves and magical enslavement, the others to the humans and magical enslavement. If Kelyon was right, this way could very damned well lead to the Halfbloods and magical enslavement.  
  
Bullshit. 


	6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six [Short chapter... -_-()]  
  
Sorry, I'm an ass. ^_^ Last chapter was split into three parts, the first two in Myre's POV and the last in Haldor's. Sorry if that confused you, I had an author's note explaining that, but I killed it. Why? As I said before, I'm an ass. Likewise, this chapter is split from the POV of, from all creatures, and alicorn (what can I say? I like the vicious type of animal...) to Kelyon halfway. Ms. Alicorn may be a little hard to follow, but Haldor will explain what happens in the next chapter. And if you can decipher this one, good for you. Enjoy!  
  
Reveiw?  
  
Grass season, sunny, warm. Relax. Relax in heat. Hot-sunny. Find herd. Find stallion.  
  
Motion. Noise. Stallion?  
  
Elf-smell! Turnattackrunflee! Human-scented elf-smell. Humanelf comes near. Attackflee! Attackflee! Back away. Back away.. no! Comes closer, and closer, and closer....  
  
Scent-changing sight-changing noise-changing. Stallion? Rival... no, mate. Stallion.... come closer. Too close! No!  
  
Foot-bloody? Stallion-waver, humanelfstallion curse. Bolt!  
  
Blood!  
  
Humanelfstallion bleeding! Blood. Bloodscentmadness... Kill! Kill and eat!  
  
Kill stallion? Kill mate? Follow mate. Follow where he leads.  
  
Blood!  
  
Grass-season. Warm-season. Graze. No hunting in grass-season. No killing humanelves, or humanelfstallions. Goodgrass.  
  
Blood!  
  
Grass and mate.  
  
BLOOD!  
  
Attack!  
  
Pain! Painpainpain! Humanelfstallion close, elfeye and human clothes and stallion-scent, and holding me and pulling me and NO! Grassbloodmate!  
  
Follow stallion. Go where he pulls you. Talking to you, telling you to come. Grass underfoot tasty-smell eat- no! Follow stallion, eat later, eat when belly hangs and eat until leaving herd and bringing.... bringing mate- burden. Mate-first, burden-later. Yes, follow stallion.  
  
Down the meadow, through the meadow, through the forest where things move and HUNT and grazemate and folow stallion through the forest and aroud the moving things and to the place that smells of fire and elves. Follow. ____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
I don't like being alone, much- but for once, I relished the feeling. Alone, on a fallen log, I had some time to think. Without Myre ranting or Haldor staring into space beside me, I was alone, and I could go over the events of the past few days in my head without some bullshit distracting me.  
  
They weren't exciting days. At least, they aren't exciting to write down- believe me, they were adventurous enough for someone who had to live them. Hunting isn't exactly fun, especially not trapping, which some of the stupider ladies protest is cheating animals out of life, and let me assure you, it's not as easy as walking down a line and pulling dead animals from traps. Traps don't automatically kill animals. Animals bite.  
  
Luckily, infections can be fought with magic, and Haldor knew how. All I had to do was lend him the power, and he had to only burn out the bacteria with a thought.  
  
It was getting rather easy, this system. If one person was working magic, the other just let them help themselves to whatever was inside of them. A strange existance, this- more tired each night, more hungry each meal, colder each time we let the fire burn down, and yet, here we were. We were thriving, which was more than I, for one, expected, we weren't starving, we weren't dying, we weren't freezing, we were alive. We hadn't killed each other yet. And the insanity was beginning to clear- or maybe it was just an illusion.  
  
We weren't cured, after all. We couldn't be sane, not yet. I wasn't thick, I could see what Haldor was thinking as plainly as if I had the mind- reading power of the ancestors-damned Halfbloods. I wasn't so young as to not know what it meant. The fact that he was too blind to see the same thing in me meant nothing, so far as I could tell.  
  
Picking up stick, I fed it into the eager, hungry flames, and wondered when it would go away. Not the stick- it would burn up in time, and so would this. Bullshit. It was bullshit.  
  
"Bullshit," I told the fire, softly, as if the greedy flames were all I could confide in. In truth, they were. "Illusionary bullshit."  
  
The flames had no answer but to finish off the part of the stick I had inserted into their heart and begin climbing up it, causing me to throw the wood into the fire to keep from being burned.  
  
I won't bore you by describing every detail of my thoughts to you- but allow me to say that when the leaves on the ground and the dried up sticks began to crunch under what sounded by cattle hooves, I jumped and nearly screamed. 


	7. Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven  
  
And I will open up If you promise to give in On this perfect night Let the two on us be one We will meet again Another time No matter what The others say Cause I would leave it all so far behind Just to be with you today So make me feel again I feel your every breath again Never mind everyone There's only me and you.  
  
This isn't as good as I'd want it to be. *sticks out tongue in frustration* Speaking of frustration, do you want to know my new least favorate color? BLACK! Yes, this is a strange thing for a metalhead to say, but it's so fucking hard to shade with! And the parts that aren't solidly colored are so god-damned obvious! Help!  
  
Haldor  
  
I walked into the woods, ignoring Kelyon's protests to help him build I fire. He could cast the spell just as well without my magic, and I needed to hunt, and plan. After all, he was no help at that. How were we going to find our way to the elven lands? Moreover, what were we going to do when we got there? We couldn't go back to life there; I knew that even if Kel didn't. Not after seeing and distinguishing humans, not after grudgingly accepting the creul joke fate had played on us. Not after living under customs for so long...  
  
Dammit! I should be thinking about fucking marriages, planning strikes against the wizards, and living a bored and overworked but pleased life as the restless second son of a Lesser Lord, not planning how the eke out a grudging half-existance in the forest because I didn't fit in with what life bore anymore. Damn!  
  
Something shifted in the bushes, and I jumped before getting a hold on myself. In the cultivated elven "wilds" that grew at fetes, animals properly greeted you instead of slinking around in the shadows. I had rarely hunted- I would have had to go to Dyran's fucking lands, and-  
  
But, no use dwelling on the past. If there was something there, better I know about it than have it sneak up on me later. I shoved aside a branch, and looked out onto open feilds.  
  
Anxiety. The humans! Instinct like what controlled the wild things wracked at me, and I drew back to the woods, but not before the sole occupant of the feilds looked up, afronted at having her grazing interrupted. The full- grown, intimadating alicorn faced me, mad, orange eyes glaring while she spurred the ground with those awful hoof-talons. She so resembled one of the deadly, but beautiful, ethereal but mad elven lords that had ruined my life that I found myself hating her, hating that monster defending her fields, preparing to charge me if I moved.  
  
Well. It would be a little fight of wills, would it? My rage grew, and I prepared to throw a levin-bolt at the damned thing- better to be out cold than dead- when Kelyon's words returned to me.  
  
We weren't getting out of these damned woods WALKING, but if we rode.... A little place began to weave in my mind, a sensation that I was somewhat unaccostomed to, but welcomed.  
  
I dropped the levin-bolt, grabbing some of the freed energies and weaving an illusion- not around my person, but around the alicorn's mind. I was a stallion. I was not an elf. I was approaching, walking towards her. I let her know this, striving to keep up the illusion that I was a stallion, not an elf, I was not an elf, I was not, not NOT an elf..... Don't move. Don't bolt. Don't attack...  
  
The wicked claw struck so fast I couldn't see it, as the stupid beast accidentally broke the illusion and attacked in self-defence. When she smelled the blood-  
  
Don't attack the stallion! Don't! Stay calm, eat grass. Good. Good, nice and calm. Come here. Come here, put your head in this.  
  
As fast as I could, I tore strips of cloth from what once was a shirt, sticking them together with the faint tactics of "woman's magic" I had once secretly learned, thinking back when I was sane that it was better to have a slight magic I could control than killing myself trying to pull of the men's stuff. Don't attack the stallion. Don't. Please don't, pretty horse...  
  
Amazingly, the mare allowed herself to be "harnessed" and led into the woods. ____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
Kelyon looked up at the sound that the alicorn mare made, when her talon- hooves hit the ground littered with half-dry sticks. I was riding her, relieved that she didn't mind my slight weight. I got the satisfaction of watching Kel's face transform, from amazement to horror, as I slipped off the alicorn's back, patted her dry neck, and smiled at him.  
  
"So," he said, recovering quickly, which was probably a benefit of our shared madness. "We won't be walking?"  
  
"No," I replied, bundling up the supplies with the other elf's help. The alicorn stomped on the ground, asking after something, most probably, that would make Kelyon laugh if he knew about it. When everything- what little there was- was bundled in some of the deer's hide, I tied them together with a strip of discarded leather and slung them over the mare's shoulder. Then I mounted her, feeling her shift a little, getting used to my weight, and waited for Kelyon.  
  
He hesitated, for a second. "There's only one?" he asked in disbelief.  
  
"We'll ride double," I said simply, holding the alicorn's head while she resumed stamping. She didn't like Kel, but as long as I did she'd tolerate him. He looked up at her, then at me, his pale features coloring. Well. So that was what it was about. I didn't blush, but it was a close thing.  
  
"Will- she carry both of us?" he asked, looking at the bags as if doubting how securely they were tied.  
  
In answer, I took off my shirt, throwing the scrap of near-useless cloth on the ground. Kelyon drew back- I knew what he saw and why he was horrified- we were both emaciated, our ribs protruding from thin, nearly transparent skin. We had hardly ever eaten in captivity, one trait wolves and elves had in common. One of many, actually. I was torn, scratched up and down my torso, the thin skin breaking and crumpling along the scars. "She'll carry," I grunted, and Kel reluctantly mounted behind me, on the mare's hindquarters. I managed to more or less ignore this, and urged the disgrunted mare forward. ____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
It was a good thing that alicorns had a smooth gait, because I had never made it a habit to ride bareback much before this, and Kelyon was rocking and bumping into me enough to bring up some of the Forbidden Emotions often enough that I didn't need us falling all over each other.  
  
When we dismounted the following night, Kel building a fire while I lured some unsuspecting hare into a death-trap. There was barely enough of it to go around, and I thought for a second that we would starve in this woods, only a week after our escape. That would NOT be good for our record....  
  
Kelyon was leaning against a tree, his pale skin dripping sweat across his collar and chain and he panted, his now-bare chest heaving up and down. Once more, the Forbidden Thoughts, the ones I had been forcing from my mind every time I looked at the other elf, emerged. Damn- but.... he was beautiful...  
  
I shoved the half-formed thought train from my concious, telling myself that it was simply a reflection of the madness I had had in the captivity. But that- it had been healing. This had not. Oh, fuck...  
  
Kelyon looked up, smiling at the game I only now noticed I had been absently preparing, and I almost dropped what I had gathered. For an elf, actually, he was not attractive- his features were as close to coarse as a Elvenlord's got, his hair, normally his only beauty, was now a rat's nest of tangles and knots that were impossible to get out without the magic that were best used on other things, and his skin was in as bad condition as mine. But... there was something to his eyes, something to the half-crazed emerald cat-eyes that held me while I finished seperating meat from bone and nessisary but inedible body-parts, and as I stuck what little edible flesh as there was on sticks and gave one to Kel.  
  
He caught my gaze as he took them, and smiled again, sadder and more sane than his smile before. He went in cycles- he never ranted, or rambled, but sometimes he talked and observed, and sometimes he was silent, staring into space. His good times, I knew with a certain detatchment, were more frequent than mine, and infinately more precious.  
  
He stuck his meat into the flames, and looked at me again. There was silence, which he broke with a question. "Tell me," he said, almost to the fire. "Were you married, when we left?"  
  
It took me by surprise; I answered without thinking. "No," I replied, thinking back to my mother's hen-like manner when it came to matrimonial proposals. "You?"  
  
Kelyon sighed. "I was engaged," he answered, and a hammer-blow of melonchy followed his words. Damn, but I hadn't thought I had gotten THIS far over my head! His next words, however, lessened that hurt- "Insufferable bitch. Had no brains beyond what this respected lady wore or this Lord liked, or what Triana says are pretty on her. Honestly, after running into the Iron People and getting over the initial rage and the ilk, I was rather glad I didn't have to actually MARRY her."  
  
I had to smile- I knew quite a few ladies like that, truth be told, and if most hadn't been to impressed with some high-born's pretty magic tricks I probably would have been bartered away like Kelyon had.  
  
"When we get back to the elven lands, I suspect that I'll have to actually marry her- or lead the elves against the Iron People; I don't think I'd like that any more, though. What are you going to do?"  
  
I nearly jumped; what WAS I going to do? I asked myself this enough times, but I had never expected an answer from myself. Kelyon watched me, over his food which he had taken out of the fire and was eating, in a barbaric but effective fasion. "I- I'm not sure. Go home, I suppose. Tell them the truth, or that I got lost, or something." But for the fact I wouldn't fit in any more, not even to the minute amounts I once had. My tongue rebelled against talking any more, which was just as well because Kelyon had shifted a mouse's breath closer, his eyes wide with curiousity and thrill, but haunted by helplessness, sorrow.  
  
"Nothing will ever change, will it?"  
  
I didn't understand. Nothing had ever changed all our lives. We were slaves- worse than some slaves- to our own people, and slaves to humans; if the Halfbloods ever caught us, we would be slaves to them. I wouldn't have been too surprised if the alicorns turned on us and enslaved us- the dragons wanted to, why not them? Why would anything change? "No," I replied, simply, because my mind had stopped trying to produce anything else to say.  
  
He sighed. Then he looked back up, and his odd, perfect eyes caught mine, like a mouse in a hawk's talon, and he leaned over, wrapping his arms around me and pressing his body against mine. It wasn't real, I thought, a daydream of some magic-backlash; even as I felt his slightly sweat-sticky flesh press into mine, press into me, his eyes still locked on mine, glowing softly with Forbidden Emotions of their own. I was, to say the very least, shocked, too much to think, too much to react as he pressed his mouth against mine, his tongue probing my lips. I was too shocked to feel anything but the Forbidden Emotions, the ones I had for so long pushed away.  
  
A dream. A fucking dream.  
  
For a second, one second, I let him open my lips, and for an instant returned his embrace. His tongue ran over the roof of my mouth, his hands clasped around my back.... Then, with the dual shock of realizing this was NOT a dream, I pulled away, scared, surprised, then terrified that I had lost him, what little or nothing we had.  
  
But his smiled at me again, those odd eyes.... He wanted it. He knew, now, that I wanted it, too. And he told me with every second, with those wonderful, glowing eyes, that it was okay, it was right, it was perfect.  
  
I didn't understand, and I will be the first to admit it. "But..." I breathed, even as he pulled me into him again.  
  
He knew what I was thinking, because, I realized, he understood; he had thought it all before, he was thinking it now. He understood what I was, who I was, more than anyone had before. "That's true," he breathed, into my ear, humor tinging his voice. "But then, there's always the consideration that we are both probably horrendously insane."  
  
And that was all he said, and that was all he needed to say, because I gave into him, then, letting him pull me further over my head, letting him sink into me and knowing, with certainty unrivaled by any I had ever had, that he was right. And we didn't sleep for a while, after that. 


	8. Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight  
  
*The previous chapter was classified as a blime/b and may have contained scenes of breif nudity, very mild sexual content, and any other mild warning for romantic scenes. It most likely shouldn't have been veiwed by anyone under the age of fourteen. It was also classified as byaoi/b, but you were previously warned about this.*  
  
Okay, I think it's time for the age-old tradition of reveiw-reponces! Hooray! First of all, for all of those who reveiwed, even if it was a crappy reveiw, I thank you! I live off of those things, you know. I'd die if you didn't reveiw. Really.  
  
Now, understand, since writing the first chapter I, too, have read the third book. I read it as soon as it came out, in fact, and rather ravenously. The fact that I continue with this is simply that I like this fate better for Kelyon and Haldor- it gives them much more credit. I chose them, over all other more important and effective characters, because I liked them. I'm not sure why- I like good bad guys and bad good guys. And the madness thing worked for them, too- I'm a sucker for the insane, you know.  
  
I don't know why there's no one who writes Elvenbane fanfics- perhaps it's just that Lackey and Norton did such a thorough job, and it's hard to find a hole and insert something into it. That's really what fanfics are- you take characters and make them fill in holes you found in said books, movies, or televisions shows, making those people who you think should have been in love fall in love, resolving conflicts you noticed weren't properly fixed, and all such like that. Or at least, mine are. Maybe I'm just wierd. Well, that's more attention than that little comment merits...  
  
And finally, I must poke the person who is vomiting all over my fanfiction reveiw page. *pokes reveiwer, whose name she happens to have forgotten, and choses to pretend that she wishes to keep her ananomous* Come now, I did warn you it was going to be yaoi. I hate to make worse a situation, but when you see that word, you can be pretty sure that two guys will... well, I'll leave it there. End of revie discussion!  
  
Now I secede, and give in to putting Shana in here. After all, I can't have an Elvenbane fic without including the Elvenbane; that would be like a Dragaera fic not about Dragaerans, or a Pokemon fic that doesn't feature actual pokemon, or... a Bubblegum Crisis fic without mention made to either bubblegum or crises!  
  
So read and reveiw, rest and relax, don't drink and drive, live and love life, marry, have kids, and enjoy! ~Ember  
  
I watched as a hawk spiraled overhead, watching in facination as it spotted prey and dove. Quickly, I snatched at it's mind, feeling the sensation of the world dropping behind me, falling in a perfectly controlled dive, a perfect strike. The bloodlust rose, as I saw the prey in sight, drew my talons in front of me, let a scream escape my throat as I drew in for the perfect kill-  
  
"So," the nasal voice whined, "It seems our Elvenbane is lazing about, while telling US that we have to work for everything."  
  
It was, in all honesty, all I could do to keep from killing the bastard, and not only because the hunting-high was only just fading, with all the control I put over it. "Caellach," I said, forcing all the calm into my voice that I could, "I've already finished my share. It's your turn, now. I'm on liesure. Maybe you've heard of it?" The biting comment I put on the tail of the statement had slipped out; now, however, there was no way to call it back.  
  
"You're being rather disrespectful, Lashana," snapped the old bastard, glaring down at me and talking down as if I was still a child. "You're lucky we didn't banish you when you first called the elves down on us, girl! Then you dragged giant lizards and wild humans in on this, and you're asking for a hell of a lot, for us to tolerate your disrespect!"  
  
I took a deep, calming breath, and wished for the four-hundreth time in those four seconds that Lorryn was there. I was never an adept at dealing with people- especially not obnoxous, rather stupid cumudgeons. "Those giant lizards, I beg you to remember, SIR, are the reason we are still alive, and so are the 'wild' humans. And with you and the other 'Elders' taking needless shit from the Elvenlords you are LUCKY we showed up before you pulled the rock holding the avalanche up because you thought it was pretty! Don't talk to me about disrespect, Caellach!"  
  
He seethed, glaring down in shock at the 'insubordination.' "You don't HAVE to tolerate this, then, girl!" he snapped down; he had always taken advantage of the fact I had never risen to his bait before that he had forgotten why he dangled it into the water in the first place. "You can just go walking back to the desert with the dragons. Go back where you came from!"  
  
Fire and Rain! Didn't he know how tempting that was? "If you were the only person that depends on me for everything we live on, Caellach, I'd be gone already! Unfortuantly, not everyone is so very stubborn against change that they would prefer to die than subject themselves to self-care, or listen to someone younger than them!"  
  
"You little-"  
  
"Shana!" I jumped at the shrill little shreik, as a human child hurtled herself through the crowd, eyes wide in terror. "Shana! In the woods! Byran and Colay said they saw-" she took a deep breath, steadying herself before she fell over. Caellach reached out an arm to steady her despite himself, as she looked up with winded blue eyes, so out of place amongst the green. "-elves!"  
  
"Spies?" I asked, horrified, at the same time Caellach snapped "Assasins!"  
  
Another Halfblood, unnoticed before, cleared his throat. I turned, seeing to great chagrin that the unknown Halfblood was Mero, who had most likely heard the whole argument and not bothered to step in. He looked up at me and smiled in appology, which I ignored in anger and grudging interest.  
  
"Why would they send a Elvenlord to spy on us? And would one get away with training in assasination?" he asked, softly and shyly. His green eyes trailed from myself to Caellach, remaining on the older halfblood for just a moment more.  
  
"They would send one to spy on us," said the girl, panting, "because they don't trust humans too far away from them, most of them. But I doubt one would get away with training to be an assasin, and I doubt they would send one into the woods without knowing where we were."  
  
I doubted the last last bit; the elves would do anything with their kin that they wanted to. "Did you shoot at them?" she asked. "Or, did Byran or Colay?" I knew neither of the boys, nor the girl; I supposed I had been too busy flitting about, asking the Iron People to come and support us, and talking to the dragons, to keep track of the increased number of runaways and, occasionally, a freed slave.  
  
"No," she replied, and her face twisted for a second in thought. "Come to think of it, the elves SHOULD have sensed them, even without wizard-power. They're devils to sneak up on; but they weren't in the best shape, the quick glance that By and Colay saw. We tried following them, but they weren't on foot."  
  
If she knew what they were riding, she would have said; I sent her away without feeling that I knew any more than when she had arrived, and now I had a lot more to dwell on. With a sigh, I signalled a stale-mate with Caellach, and told Mero to get the Council together.  
  
"They're just two elves, Shana, probably with next to no magic," he said softly. "Just give the scouts bows and more arrows, and tell them to shoot anything elf-formed that they know isn't a Halfblood. And send some of the better scouts out, put a mage-sheild around your caves, we'll be fine."  
  
I nodded, giving myself a mental shake. There was no need for Council; human assasins and spies had been crawling all over; magicless elves were only marginally more dangerous, maybe even less dangerous. I nodded to the girl, telling her- no, asking her- to gather the better scouts, and sat back on the grass.  
  
"Caellach," I said, the exaustion I had been feeling for a long time coming back in full. He grunted. "Go bring in food."  
  
I few footsteps later and he was gone; I knew he wouldn't do anything of the sort. In fact, he was probably now trying to get some hapless human child to do anything he needed to do. He couldn't do any of the arcane work, anyway, because he couldn't work around the iron like we could. The oldest person who COULD work the gemstones that I had discovered and get past the iron was Denelor, my teacher.  
  
"He's a hell of a bastard," said Mero; I jumped, having forgotten he was there. He laughed and sat next to me, smiling. Then the smile faded, and his brows knitted in concern. "Shana, you need sleep," he said. "You look like Hell, and you know that the elven armies are coming. You have to rest between now and when they get here, and I don't think that they'll stop and wait for you to wake up if you wait too long."  
  
I had to smile; he was right, of course. "I will. There's just so much to do... and between elven spies, human assasins and new loads of escapees every time I blink... not to mention Caellach, and every other idiot who thinks that old age is something to be flaunted over power, wit or determination. Dammit, Mero! How do you do it?"  
  
"Simple," was the friendly responce. "I blend into the shadows, you're a legend and you stand out. Come on, let's get dinner and a bed for the night. Lorryn and Rena say that the Iron People are coming here, now; we'll have someone at our back if our dragons can shift enough claws for you to pay for them. They'll be back, soon."  
  
"I wish Keman had as good news," I sighed, fighting away the surge of hope and euthoria with the ancient weapons of knowlege and self-control. "The dragons of just about every Lair but our's are lining up, but he can't get anything out of our's but the few who had already come. And Lori's just screaming at him to tell her where Myre is. We'd all sleep easier, I think, if we knew." The Iron People had already told her about Kelyon, Haldor and Myre's escape, and she supposed the Elvenlords' and dragon's knowledge was the reason they were being plagued with assasins and spies. Kelyon and Haldor had been insane, senile young men; a tragic case for them. Myre, however, while being stupid, was also determined and nasty, and could not only find the elves but lead them against the Wizards, and into their own death-trap. The dragon had, at last report, been obsessed with capturing two-leggers as slaves; she was probably even now thinking up a plot to conquer the elves and their human dependants.  
  
"Yeah," replied Mero. "My guess is as good as your's, sister- where is she, do you think?"  
  
Sister was a very odd title for me, I suppose- he had already told me, when I told him the guilt I felt about abandoning the late and lamented Valyn's memory in favor of Lorryn, that he was my cousin, in a intuitive sort of way; my supposed father being his father's brother. That, he said, made me Valyn's half-sister, which was why he never responded to me in any way. I rather liked this thought; it certainly made me out to be more attractive than Valyn simply not caring did.  
  
"I think she went to tell the elves where we are," I replied, bitterly. "At least it's better that she tell them than Kelyon or Haldor, though."  
  
Mero looked at me, his green eyes concerned and confused. "Why?" he asked. "They'd know anyway, wouldn't they? Why is it better she tells them?"  
  
I sighed; this wasn't a good situation. "We can't be blamed if Myre tells. She found this place on her own; we TOLD the elves, even if it wasn't intentionally, even if it was just in small talk with someone we guessed would be a captive forever. Caellach can't find a way to blame us, to get more people on his side, unless those not yet with him are as thick as those who are." I sighed, and looked out to the distance.  
  
Far away, growing closer though still not in sight, an army trudged for us. 


	9. Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine  
  
Whoo! It's 11:30, and I'm on a role! Can't stop... need... more... sugar! (Have you ever wondered why sugar isn't spelled 'shugar?' Oh, don't mind me, that's the caffeine talking.) And we're back to Kelyon, who's been patiently waiting while we jumped from Myre's head to an alicorn's mind, to Haldor to Shana and back to him! And away we go! (the persepctive changes after a bit to Haldor, okay?)*explodes*  
  
Forgetting all I'm lacking Completely incomplete I'll take your invitation You take all of me! I'm living for the only thing I know I'm running but not quite sure where to go And I don't know what I'm diving in to Just hanging for a moment here with you There's nothing left to lose.... There's nothing left to find..... There's nothing in the world.... That could change my mind! There is nothing else.....  
  
The alicorn's pace was steady and smooth enough, though luckily Haldor and I needed no more further incentive to fall all over each other and riding double and bareback no longer seemed so dreadful. Of course, game was getting scarse, and on the days Haldor couldn't lure anything near enough to him and we lived on what I could coax the river to relinquish were pretty bad. I believe we'd have been dead two weeks ago if we were still living in utter embarrassment, too scared to revolt the other by looking into his eyes.  
  
And as much as I hate to sound like a poetic and dissapointingly hopeless romantic, it was nice to have something worth looking forward to, something not the same, never-changing cycle of 'I'm-better-than-you I'm-less-than- you.' Nice to have someone my equal, who cared about me as much as I did about him.  
  
I leaned over the alicorn mare's neck, looking over the forest ahead. Nothing, yet; but both Haldor and I had been getting nervy. Who knew when we would stumble onto the war between the Wizards and elves? The last thing we wanted was to be shipped back to the Iron People. And if Myre was out here, so much to worse. It would be too much to ask for that she had died in the stampede, though that had been a motive- I trust the humans appreciated it- and it was far too much to ask that, should she have survived,she would forgive us. The mare was getting a bit on edge, too, and we didn't take THAT as a good sign. Alicorns were hard to scare.  
  
"See anything?" grunted Haldor, startling me into jumping. He still didn't talk much, though he wasn't staring into space half as much, and neither was I. This was curing us.  
  
"No," I replied, looking back at him and catching his eyes with a smile. He returned it to me, slower and a little sadder, as if he still didn't quite trust me. Maybe he didn't; Haldor's trust wasn't easy to earn. Personally, I would have trusted the man with my life, but my trust wasn't half as hard to gain.  
  
He, surprisingly, continued our conversation. "What are we going to do?" he asked, echoing the question I had asked myself a thousand times. Not just what WE were going to do, though some of the question circled around the newly-found love of our's in an agravating orbit. The elves weren't exactly lax about accepting those different than them- but, of course, it wasn't our only problem. No; what were we going to do about, say, the idea of human slaves, instead of masters? How were we going to be the same, treat them the same? How were we going to show complete indifference when our kin advance on our friends, or as close as each had come to being a friend, the Halfbloods?  
  
This wasn't getting us anywhere. How often had I asked myself this? As often as I come up empty, unable to see anything but the ground in front of us. We had to go somewhere- we had jumped already, we had to fly or fall. We couldn't keep falling and hope to live.  
  
And there was something to live for, now.  
  
"We could go to the Wizards," I offered, as absurd as it was. It wouldn't hurt half as much to see some of the Greater Lords being killed.  
  
"Or the dragons," replied Haldor sarcastically. "We'd be more welcome, I think." He shook his head, and the alicorn tried to shy as I relaxed the constant pressure to her head. Haldor had dropped the illusion two days ago, but she, like us, had already adapted to captivity and wouldn't fight so long as we kept control. Pity was not something I had felt in a long time, but I hoped we could let the damned monster go soon.  
  
"They might let us take shelter, at least until we... we can go back," I continued, though I guessed he was right. "Then, they might kill us outright, or give us back to the Iron People. Or-" I couldn't help it, I winced. "-trade us back."  
  
Haldor snorted. "I wouldn't be fucking surprised," he growled, shaking his head. He dropped his hand, then, and I felt it on the small of my back. "We'll find a way," he whispered, leaning into my ear. I leaned back for a second, then continued with the control of the alicorn. She snorted as I steered her to the left, along with the curve that seemed to take the whole hill in on it. We were moving up, hoping to see the elven cities from the crest.  
  
The hill was steep, broken by patches of trees and undergrowth, which our mare braved without question, her head held high and proud. It had been weeks since we had found her, and I still was unnerved by her stupid courage, yet grudging acceptance. We were lucky; she was probably one of the smarter of her kin.  
  
Which was good, as Haldor leaned forward to my ear to.... Well, the alicorn had her head for a second, and we were damned lucky the beast didn't bolt with us on her back. A stick cracking pulled our attention back to our intence alertness, and I glanced around to see the noise-maker.  
  
Suddenly, the damned mare let out a shreik of horror, bucking with everything she had. Haldor half-jumped, half-rolled off of her, and I grabbed one of our packs and jumped to the left, which was a good choice because the mare pivoted, turning to the right and pummeling the earth with her hoof-talons as she bolted. A shout alerted me to the presence of some not-beast, not-bird animal, and I managed to turn and start to run, sneaking a glance back at Haldor as he stumbled after me. An arrow flew past my ear, wobbling in it's clumsy course. I beat my way into the undergrowth, turning just in time to see one of the oddly-colored arrowheads hit Haldor's shoulder.  
  
It shouldn't have been more than a graze, in fact, if everything was working right, Haldor should have been able to shrug it off and keep running. Instead, he screamed in shock and pain and stumbled over himself, clutching his shoulder, on his stomach on the underbrush.  
  
Two months ago, I would have kept running. As it was, that option never even occured to me, much less was hastily shrugged off. I ran back, dropping beside him to see a lump swelling on the other Lord's shoulder. I bit my lip until it actually hurt, and the acrid taste of blood tinged my tongue, then, before the hidden archers could come and check their cowering prey, I grabbed Haldor's too-promenant ribcage, ducking under his arm and pulling him erect. His eyes opened, glossy with whatever venom had been poisoning the arrowheads, and landed on mine. I didn't stop, though, I couldn't, I simply carry-dragged my lover away from the archers.  
  
Up the hill, as far from the archers as we could get, even as the shouts faded into the distance, even as the humans- for humans the voices betrayed the archers as- left to report. The question was, were they the Wizard's humans, or the elves'? Did it really matter? Would they kill us anyway, as traitors or enemies or whatever the hell we were?  
  
At last, under the cover of the trees, I dropped beside Haldor, ignoring the temptation to lean over him as his skin caught fire and his eyes grew pale. I found the wound, using the tiny magic I owned to pull the poison from the wound in the blood that splashed across the make-shift breeches that were more stitch than cloth, across both of our pale, thin flesh, standing out like coal on snow. The poison itself was thick, gray-black and blended with Haldor's blood until it was a ugly, sticky black mess. I let it run until too much blood had been lost to allow it to resume, and then reached out with the remained of my reserves, mending the wounds as well as I could. The ugly bulge was still there, but there it would have to remain.  
  
With a slight smile as my lover stirred, I touched him with only one last bit of magic, pushing us both into a deep and dreamless sleep. ____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
He came back.  
  
Even as the fire's tongue of pain took over my entire right side as if I had been dropped into boiling oil, I could think only about watching Kelyon turn back, running back. Coming back to me.  
  
My own kin had left me to whatever fate nature could pull for me; the Halfbloods, who Kel at least figured as our friends, left us on dragonback, without so much as looking back. It wouldn't have hurt either of them, to come back, even for a second, but Kelyon it did affect, Kelyon it DID almost kill, and he turned around and came back for me. He turned around and helped me get away, and healed the poisoned wound, and wished me into the darkness that held me in such a sweet embrace...  
  
He was still asleep, and I had gotten out from under his lax weight without waking him up. Now he lay in my lap, and I looked down at him, nearly comely without his eyes open, but still... oh god...  
  
I pulled him a little closer, and he gave a little groan as he woke up, his eyes slits in his almost sickly face. He smiled when he saw me, leaning over him in concern.  
  
"You're okay," he said, softly. "I- I thought- You're okay."  
  
Well, look at that. So I was. 


	10. Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten  
  
This time, we join a newbie dragon, my own character, Kathakareal, who is copyright to me and only to me, so even if you wanted to you couldn't take her! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Okay, on we go.  
  
It had been a long and tiring flight, and though the Elders had taken it in stride, the younger of us, with smaller wings and smaller lungs and less practice at this unholy 'exersize' wound up exausted and feeble for the rest of three days, in which the dragons already posted in the Citadel, the fabled home of the Halfbloods, hunted for us, and all we had to do was use our shifting tricks to grow our claws for Halfblood arrowheads.  
  
"However," said the wizened old not-Halfblood sitting on my right claw with no definable fear, "that's no reason to slack after we know that you're better, Kathakareal."  
  
My crest flattened in offence and dismay. I was NOT being lazy! There was simply no reason to move as long as the others were so willing to make my kills... "Sorry, Father Dragon," I growled, without meaning it. Of course, Kalamadea knew I was lying, and he rebuked me with a glare. My scales stuck out in defiance, the red-dusted-with-silver plates sticking like thorns out of my flanks, but Father Dragon simply laughed and got up, patting my claw as he did so like a human and his dog. "Get up," he warned, "and get something to eat, Kathakareal."  
  
I sighed, then slowly stood, following the Halfblood-dragon out of my own little cluster of caverns, gradually shifting to a Wizard myself to avoid intimadating the other two-leggers. I was good at shifting, even the Elders of my Lair said so- they couldn't shift smaller than a tall Wizard, while I could become anything bigger than one of the spotted desert-lizards. I walked quickly to keep up with the 'old' Halfblood, who grinned over his shoulder at my presumably surly expression.  
  
"You've been getting lazy, Kathakareal," he scolded, and I snorted.  
  
"Nearly everyone in this damned place is," I replied, gesturing to some elderly Halfbloods rolling dice in a corner. Kalama gave them a hard gaze, and they grudgingly disbanded. "Why shouldn't I be?"  
  
"Because, Love, you have Hamenleai," was the dragon's responce, smiling back at me. I snorted again, I couldn't help it. It was his answer to everything! If I had half the 'Hamenleai' as Shana did, people would be lining up to make my kills for me! I had gotten here to help the Halfbloods- if they were going to pay the Iron People, why not help the dragons, too? "And the answer to that, love, would be that dragons have been fiddling in the Wizard's lives for as long as we've been here." It was a good thing that he was in front, because I was mouthing the words along with him, and he probably would have been ticked to learn that. "And unless you want to be like Myre, Keman's sister, you are best to make your own kills, polish your own scales, and-" he turned and looked at me, catching me in mid-word- "respect your Elders."  
  
I quickly left the Elder's side, into the sun, which caught me in her sweet embrace and kissed my Halfblood hair. Despite any words to Kalamadea, I would be horrifically depressed in the Citadel, being brought food until I was dark-minded and fat. Carefully, I shifted back to my dragon form- small for a female, but a little taller than Keman, red-and-silver scales, tough, barely-transparent membrane, and bright golden eyes. I glanced up at the sky, and bunched myself up, getting ready to launch myself into the sky.  
  
"Katha?" I hesitated at the farmilliar, partially-panicked voice. Shana lauched herself over a boulder, charging for me in a stance so like an angry alicorn that I almost took off to get out of her way. Unlike an alicorn, though, she pulled up and backed away so that I could look down at her.  
  
"Hmm?" I asked, not particularluy likeing the look on her face. That was the 'I have something for you to do,' look. The look that almost always ended up with myself coming back in, wings half-torn off from scouting, fighting, or some other task Shana thought I was the best wing for. Or worse yet- trying to herd together the Halfbloods.  
  
"Katha, the elves are getting close- really close. Go down, please. Go down and see what's going on?" That look deteriorated to a pleading look- one that had never failed to get me off. Damn her and her perceptiveness.  
  
The problem with being a good shifter was that everyone expects you to be a spy. With a sigh of disgust that I kept tightly inside of me, I gave a court nod, and abandoned my newly-won dragon form for something smaller, slighter. A large raven with slightly-silver primaries took to the sky in my place, crying the apocalypse on the ignorant elves below.  
  
Of course, they could afford to be ignorant. It took forever to fly over the human army, all armed and grisly fighters, watching the birds overhead without the slightest bit of interest. It was a terrible sight, really, and the reason I so resented spying on the elves. They were all scarred, dirty, sweaty, hot; some were sick, lying on their beds and moaning, sitting up to cough up blood, or lying, newly-deseaced, where no one wanted to go near lest they were accused of causing the death.  
  
I was relieved to find myself over the lieges of Elvenlord fighters and minor commanders- though they weren't much better, truth be told. In the elves' society, you had magic and power or nothing. At least these people weren't falling over sick, however- elves don't get sick, even if they don't have much magic.  
  
I landed on a spindly little tree, perfect for my own little aura to wrap around me, obscuring my dragon-shadow as a second-nature, as only my Lair knew how to do.  
  
"What do you make of it?" hissed one Elvenlord, looking down at another; the speaker was dressed in blue, the other in a dark green. "He's not under illusions, but it's suspicious."  
  
"After Valyn," replied Green, his voice a long and nasal drawl, not unlike Caellach's, "I wouldn't trust anyone who came over with the promise of knowing where the Halfbloods lived. Or anything like that. Especially not anyone as shady as that."  
  
"I agree," said Blue, though he dropped his voice to a whisper. "After all, an elf in chains? Unheard of! And spinning child's tales about wild humans and metals to hide the fact he has no magic!"  
  
Chains? Wild humans? Kelyon and Haldor! Of course- they HAD made it to the elves! I had to tell Shana! I got ready to take off, just as Green began to talk again.  
  
"We could cut of the iron, just so that he can show off what he can do."  
  
Blue shook his head. "Already been done. He just went to sleep, promising to show his stuff 'tomorrow.' My ass- we should kill him before he cuts our throats in our sleep!"  
  
"Is that so?" There was something... wrong with that voice- it wasn't the simply insane voice of Kelyon, or the hoarse, ill-used croak I had always associated with Haldor, it was the deadly drawl of a cobra, or the mad charge of the alicorn- insane, but still unbelievably dangerous. "What would you do, then, about finding the Citadel? The wild humans? The DRAGONS."  
  
I turned my head, seeing the Elvenlord who stood, cloaked in his own self- importance, in the door of the tent. "I have a bit to settle among those numbers, gentlemen," he whispered, his very voice ice. "With the Elvenbane, with the dragons that follow her like loyal dogs. With the humans that keep respectable- elves- in chains."  
  
And that was when I noticed it- the dragonshadow, clinging to the elf that had to be Myre, as she looked over the elves with eyes glittering with her own madness.  
  
I took to the wing, going to warn Shana just as the army began to move again. ____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
The armies lined around us, marching closer. The Halfbloods couldn't see them, but then, the Halfbloods had neither eagle-like eyes nor wings, and couldn't see things more than a league away, as the armies were. Our army was perhaps three-hundred people, including, at the moment, seventy dragons, three of whom, including myself, were in the sky, the rest were on the ground in Halfblood form. Also within the numbers were some fifty Iron People, who had come at last, but too few, without the best of their warriors, seventy-five Halfbloods, with the impressive but limited magic, and a single elven female. The rest, some hundred, hundred and five were freed or runaway slaves, without combat experience, or anything but human- magic and determination.  
  
On the other side, two-thousand trained fighters, seven-hundred untrained fighters, forty Elvenlords with impressive and nearly-unlimited magic, eighty Elvenlords with severely limited magic, and one dragon.  
  
We had iron. They had the numbers. We had better numbers magic-wise, we were also surrounded by the iron that would negate it.  
  
We were going to die here.  
  
I could see every detail, and everything I saw of the enemy army convinced me what would play out. Their untrained fighters would meet the Iron People, seven-hundred versus fifty, and the few of the wild humans that survived that would be killed by the gladiators. The trained fighters would then get to the runaway humans, the beryls on their collars negating the human magic, that was practically useless unless you counted Shana's telekenisus. The hundred untrained fighters of Shana's side would be slaughtered, and the trained fighters would move on the Halfbloods.  
  
That was when I saw the final flaw, the final deathtrap. An overhang that would be too easy to back in to. It would keep the dragons Halfbloods- and then the trained fighters would move in on them, who couldn't even cave in the ground under the human's feet with all the iron.  
  
Oh. Oh, fuck.  
  
:Shana! Shana, get the dragons airborne! Get them- Shana!: But the two- legger didn't respond, and neither did Kalamadea or Alara or Keman. They stood like statues, repeating to themselves everything and nothing at all, useless and empty encouragment.  
  
And as I watched, helpless from the sky, the two armies converged. 


	11. Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven  
  
Back to Kelyon. ^_^ Changes perspective halfway through, again, this time to Shana.  
  
Yes, yes, I know- but given that they're my friends, could I really help but make them heroes? It wouldn't be right- and anyway, something has to happen with them, or it'll get boring. Anyways, I'm ramboling.  
  
Cast the coming apple Into the northern set of lights To draw out the timid wild one To convince you it's alright.... I listen for the whisper Of your sweet insanity While I formulate denials Of your effect on me You're a stranger! So what do I care? Vanished today Not the first time I hear All the laughter.....  
  
"Come on," Haldor urged, though his eyes betrayed his worry. We were both a bit tired- he from the poison, and myself from all the fucking magic. For the first time in all my life, I had a tiny little flare of respect for the Greater Lords. How on earth did they transform their whole houses with the magic that it hurt for me just to mend a wound with?  
  
Shana- or was it the other Halfblood, the one that had come afterwards?- had once told me that the Greater Lords, for all their pomp, never could mend a wound, or dry clothing, or any of the things Haldor, Sheyrena and I could do, but it still stung to know all the things I, myself, would never be able to do.  
  
Haldor paused, then looked up- I followed his gaze, seeing huge, gossamer wings stretched to their fullest overhead. Dragons. We both crouched, but didn't pause in our acsent- what good would it do to stop? if they saw us, they would see us, and if they looked down, they would see us. But if there were dragons circling, what was happening below? Curious, and both nearly certain that the hill ended in a cliff, we climbed, through the tick- infested undergrowth like the barbarian humans. Of course, right at that moment, it seemed that the wild humans had a pretty good deal, but the indignity was clear enough.  
  
At last, we escaped the underbrush, as it grew too thin and we crawled under the less-covering trees. Luckily, the three dragons obviously had more pressing matters to attend to- they circled and screamed, dove and pulled back up as a volley of bare-visible arrows- probably elf-shot, I realized- and circled again overhead, hesitating. At last, one- a saffire dragon that seemed oddly farmilliar, until I reconized the dragon who had shared captivity with us, Keman- was hit by one of the arrows, that went through his wing-membrane, dissolving it on touch. The dragon screamed, falling for the earth, until the other two, dodging arrows of the encouraged snipers, grabbed him with their talons and coasted him to the earth far below our hill.  
  
At last, we broke out of cover altogether, and were confronted by a large, steep and rocky cliff. From there, we could see the whole battle, from behind and a bit to the left of the Wizards. It wasn't very encouraging to our 'friends.'  
  
They were shoved back into an overhanging, so far down that the dragons on the ground couldn't shift. They couldn't work magic; had the elves discovered the Iron People's secrets? As for the Iron People themselves, they lay across the ground, most of them- I saw the War Chief and Priest to the side, collecting the rest of their peoples for a dignified retreat.  
  
Leaving, of course, Shana to die. And the Wizards. And Keman, Kalamadea, and... the other Halfblood, the one who was so good at making himself discreet.  
  
Keman was standing up, and I watched him scream as his membrane grew back, slowly and obviously painfully. A violet dragon landed next to him, while the only other one in proper shape, a red-and-silver drake, continued to circle, though obviously whatever the elves had done blocked the dragon's magic as well as the Halfbloods, and the elves, one would suppose, as well. The army continued to march up, trying to and most likely suceeding in killing off the annoying Halfbloods. The annoying Halfbloods that had been at least partially civil to us, unlike the Elven Lords, to whom we were less than we were to the Iron People.  
  
Pitiful, thinking of someone who didn't hate as a friend, but there you are. We had something resembling a friend- and it most certainly wasn't the sober army that marched towards the Halfbloods, an army that didn't even try to find us when we were missing, an army that was merely a band of slaves controlled by blood-thirsty, power-hungry bastards.  
  
There really wasn't much discussion, truth be told. I would have thought Haldor wouldn't have seen the point, but even as I turned to look at him he was nodding, and didn't stop me as I reached in, taking a minimum of his power as I weaved an illusion.  
  
I was good at this, by now- however, this wasn't going to be one of the frail little entertainments that the Iron People wanted. This was going to be huge, well-made and impossible to detect. My own magic was going to make the illusion; however, I needed Haldor to help me back over the trail to the illusion until even Dyran couldn't find it on his own, unless he knew what it was. We had found this little stunt, too, a while back when some unseen hunter had nearly torn our throats out, scenting our little magic tricks.  
  
Scale by scale, I built it, deciding on a deep, forest green for it's coloring, and making it huge, larger by far even than the blue-black dragon Kalamadea. A long neck, a long tail, a big head with huge teeth and huge horns. Glowing eyes, red colored, huge, hand-like talons, immence wings, shining flanks. I had it roar with a flick of my hand, then retraced the illusion, severing it's obvious ties, then went back across, until I had cut it off so completely from me that it never would be traced back. Already, despite Haldor's aid, I was feeling light-headed, and it had hardly began.  
  
Tossing my hand, and calling the illusionary fire, I tossed my creation into the air. ____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
We were being driven back, until the dragons couldn't shift and Keman fell and I didn't know what the fuck to do! The Iron People were regrouping, ready to flee, the humans were all, one by one, fleeing back to their masters, all but the strong and willful. The Wizards were stumbling, unable to attack the elves arcanely with all the iron. And the leagues of humans kept coming, coming in bulk and numbers. Myre, Katha said, had joined them, and with the dragon to lead them, the elves knew where they lived and what they were doing.  
  
Until help came, and from the sky.  
  
A dragon, green and immence, blocked out the sky with his giant wings, screaming at the Elvenlords. Talons flexed while he flew, his eyes glowed red. Fire gathered around his muzzle, and strode for the ground...  
  
Wait. The dragons couldn't breathe fire!  
  
The fire, itself, also acted weird- it shot heat out across the ground, but only burned the ground it directly touched, not that around it. And the fire didn't spread, it dissaperated when the dragon stopped shooting it.  
  
To the Wizards and the dragons, though the dragons probably had figured it out, I shouted, i:It's an illusion!:/i  
  
The elves, however, WERE fooled by it, and turned tail at once, the humans especially, then followed by their masters. The dragon followed them, shooting fire down again and again, which was when I noticed another oddity- the fire would consume two people, and there would be two people lying on the ground when the fire was gone, but two people would also run out of the flame. I supposed that each one of those two people would see the fire consuming the other, and see two bodies behind him, and his friend running at his side, but who was thinking about odd survivals or unexplained deaths NOW?  
  
When the elves were out of sight- which took far less time than them getting INTO sight- the 'dragon' turned in midair, it's tail lashing at the wind. Then it 'spotted' us, screaming and diving, claws out. Despite what I had told them, there were screams, mostly from the human children, but who couldn't blame them?  
  
Only when the dragon was about a hundred feet from us did it suddenly dissapear into the air.  
  
I, for one, collasped into the dirt, acutely aware of how DAMNED close I had come to dying. Even now I had to look a few more times just to be certain there was no army charging us as we relaxed, laughed, or mourned the dead or coddled the wounded.  
  
"You're okay," said a voice, and I relaxed at Lorryn touched my shoulder, gently. "I was worried...."  
  
"So was I," piped up Mero, and Keman's voice grunted his assent as he, in Halfblood form, looked around suspiciously.  
  
"Keman, are you up for a flight?" I asked, trying to mask the fact that I, for one, was NOT. "I suppose we're going to have to find our... our 'rescuers,' and it's best that we do, before people start concocting rumors."  
  
"We DON'T want people saying that Dyran is conspiring against us from the grave," agreed the dragon, wearily. For a moment, I wondered how people could get Dyran trying to kill us out of an illusion saving us, but when there was a face to be put on something, people found a way to do it. "Okay, Shana. Let's get it over with."  
  
He shifted, Lorryn and Mero hastily getting out of the way before he crushed them with his bulk. I put a hand on his shoulder, which heaved up and down, betraying his exaustion. Dragons could not stay aloft forever, and without using the thermals and wind-patterns, Keman couldn't stay in the air for much longer than an hour.  
  
i:Father Dragon? Keman and I are leaving to find out who- or what- made that illusion.:/i  
  
A mental chuckle. i:That is good, Lashana,: /ihe replied. I nodded to no one, and Keman launched himself into the air, jerking higher with heavy wingbeats. I held on, trying to ignore the angry comments my stomach had to make on the situation.  
  
At last we were high enough to circle, watching the Iron People gather, arguing heartily with Parth Agon, who looked at them with an expression that reminded me that he was, after all, old. I wished I could be down there to help him, but further contemplation at what 'helping' would entail made me just as glad to be nearly falling off a dragon's back.  
  
i:Ah. Shana,: /iKeman jerked me from my thoughts as he circled lower, looking down at two Elvenlords- one clearly unconcious in the other one's arms. i:Now, what the HELL are they doing here?:/i  
  
I didn't reconize them, though Keman surely did- a more unLordly pair of Elvenlords could hardly be imagined. Both of them had nearly-transparent skin, too pale and blistered in the sun anyway. The one who was looking up in fear had cloudy, grey-green eyes and a sickly face, and the one who wasn't had brittle, lanky hair. They both were thin, and without shirts their ribs were altogether obvious.  
  
Suddenly, it dawned on me, as Keman drew closer. "Kelyon?" I barked without thinking, staring down at the unconcious one. The other was Haldor, I noticed, and he pulled Kel closer as he glared at Keman, wanting to run so badly it was clear on his face, but not willing to leave his fellow to the dragon.  
  
THAT said something.  
  
Keman landed with grace, and Haldor relaxed a little upon seeing me, and reconizing who I was. "What- what are you doing here? Did you cast the illusion?"  
  
Haldor looked down at Kelyon, concern plain on his face, and nodded. "He did," he growled, and I winced at the hoarse voice.  
  
"Fuck. Well." I went over, kneeling beside Haldor and looking at Kelyon. It didn't seem good- he was way, way too drained, and considering that he had made a monstrous illusion, somehow disguised it, and kept it up and moving and attacking until all the elves were gone, it wasn't surprising. Yes, what very, very little power he had left 'felt' the same as what had dissapeared when the dragon had. I nodded, briskly, and pulled him from Haldor's arms. The other elf hesistated in letting me pull Kel away, but eventually he seceded and allowed he to haul the exausted Lord to Keman's shoulders, where we would ride, me holding Kelyon on. It wasn't going to be easy, and I wasn't looking forward to it, but it would do.  
  
"Get on behind his wings," I told Haldor, checking over the young Elvenlord. Yeah, after what he'd doubtlessly been through, it probably wouldn't have been too hard to ride on the less-moving but harder to balance on portion of Keman. Kelyon wouldn't feel it, but when he woke up- if he woke up- he would have bruises, everywhere.  
  
With that, I hauled the unconcious elf onto Keman's shoulders, while the dragon tried shifting to keep Kel or Haldor from falling off during the flight. Then I took the chain still fastened to his neck, tying it around Keman's neck, which the dragon did NOT like, with the iron feeling like it was choking him...  
  
"Sorry," I told him in the dragon's tongue, patting his chest. "But..."  
  
Only then did I notice Haldor, glaring at me darkly as I finished Kelyon's life-line. It took me a second before I realized that this whole thing probably looked, to the Elvenlord, like they were being recaptured. I tried to soften my gaze, hoped it had worked, and shook my head.  
  
"If I don't tie him down, he'll fall off, even if I hold on to him," I told him, trying to ignore that hollow glare that told me, quite plainly, that he didn't trust me. What the hell had HAPPENED to these elves? "I suggest you do the same thing. Dragon-riding isn't half so romantic as it looks, and truth be told, it doesn't actually LOOK that romantic from the ground. Come on." Hoping Haldor would take my advice, I put a hand on Keman's shoulder and hoisted myself up.  
  
A quick glance over my shoulder proved Haldor not nearly so incompetant as one would think when he never talked- he was tethering himself, hesitantly, to Keman's spines, forcing them upright, ignorant of how uncomfortable that was to the dragon, who bore it like a patient cat being petted backwards. Then the dragon once more lept into the wind's embrace, leaving the earth and he battling forward.  
  
At the very least, Haldor WAS assured of my honesty, at least where this was concerned. He stayed on Keman's back, a mixture of his life-line and his own bloody determination. At last we reached a thermal, shoving us up but sparing Keman for a moment the use of his shoulders and muscles. Then we were jumping and soaring from one thermal to a gust of wind to a dead patch that sent us falling some twenty feet before Keman caught another thermal. Kelyon slipped from my grip more than once, not waking from his drained slumber even through the flight.  
  
At last, we were over the citadel, where everyone congrated, waiting for us to land so the mysterious 'savior' could be properly coddled. i:Please- go inside! I need room out here!: /iI begged, while Keman circled over the crowd. i:Everyone but Parth, Danae, Diric, Kalama, Lorryn, Rena, Alara and Mero- please!: /iGrudgingly, the crowd thinned- some dragged away by Zed and Denelor- bless them!- and some hurrying back inside, terrified that Shana had brought back something poisonous and deadly.  
  
At last everyone was gone, except the people I had requested- and, of course, Caellach, who was arguing vehelemently with Parth Agon. The two Iron People leaders, the War Cheif Danae and the Priest Diric, the dragon Shamans Alara and Kalamadea, and, though no one but I reconized her, the little lizard on a nearby rock that was Kathakareal, and my own little possy, Lorryn, Rena and Mero.  
  
i:Should we wait for Caellach?:/i  
  
i:I don't know how much time they have, Keman. Will he be any trouble?: /iThe last thing I wanted was to have to battle past some crusty old bastard to lug two half-dead Elvenlords into the once-secret lair of the Wizards, but...  
  
i:Oh, he won't be trouble,: /iKeman growled, his vicious tone shocking me.i :I'll tear him down myself, if need be.:/i  
  
With that, he stooped down, flaring out into a glorious landing in the middle of Caellach's argument. He glared at the older wizard as Haldor untangled his chain, and slid, with obvious relief, off Keman's back.  
  
Right into Diric's line of sight.  
  
The two stared at each other in mutual shock and horror, Haldor stumbling back a little, though his eyes flashed to Kelyon and he stood his ground. I cursed- how stupid! Why the hell did I ask Diric and Danae to stay out here?  
  
i:What- Shana, are those who I think they are?: /iMero stared openly at Kelyon, and Haldor as I untangled him. I sighed, looked over the dumbfounded and angry Caellach, the frozen Parth, Rena and Lorryn, and the single sight I never would have expected- a shocked Kalamadea. Only Foster Mother, Alara, was in any shape to help, so I grabbed at straws.  
  
i:Foster Mother? Will you help me with Kelyon, here? Oh- shit!: /iThe last was because Caellach had regained his sences, and was going on a speech about how elves- especially those who no one here knew- were NOT allowed inside the Citadel at ANY time, and how there was no proof that either had done anything, and all sorts of nonesensical shit that no one listened to for the single point that it was he who said them. But he WAS blocking the way, and no one was moving to stop him.  
  
Until help came from a most unexpected source.  
  
"Go sit down inside, Wizard," snapped Kala, hustling from the cave complex and making a shooing motion with her hand. "We'll decide what to do when these boys are inside and lying down- they're both messes! You- Lorryn, Rena, Mero, go help Shana, will you, dears? The rest of you, come with me, we'll hold a meeting on it, and you can assemble anyone of importance with an opinon- Shana, I think that the quarters on the far right, the ones reserved for more runaways, will do. Come on, nothing's getting done while you sit around!"  
  
Something about her manner got even Caellach obeying her- Diric, with a slight smile on his face, walked behind his wife, while Mero, Sheyrena and Lorryn came to help me, Shadow taking Kelyon's right side and Sheyrena offering her aid to Haldor, who still stared after Diric, and took it only grudgingly. Lorryn leading, they made their way to the appropriate room, where the three halfbloods hauled Kel onto his back and Rena guided Haldor to his. The unconcious Elvenlord's breathing was labored, and his mouth was open like a dying fish.  
  
"I'll take care of it," said a voice from the hall, and I was by no means loathe to give up custody to Katha, who, in Halfblood form, came to the bedside and looked over Kelyon.  
  
With them out of my hands, I walked briskly down the hall with Mero, Lorryn, and Rena in tow, to the inpromptu 'meeting.'  
  
Everyone was already there- Caellach and his cronies, Parth Agon, Father Dragon, Alara and a few more Elders, Keman, Zed, Denelor, Diric, Danae and Kala, and a handful more of Iron People.  
  
Keman mentally breifed me-i :Basically, Caellach says we should kill them, give them back to the Iron People or trade them as trators to the Elvenlords in return for a few more years of peace. Disgusting, yes, but keep in mind that I'm quoting. Parth says the last is terrible, and shouldn't be considered, but he's in no means above handing them back to the Iron People- and Diric wants them back. Danae says that captivity was killing them, but agrees it's too risky letting them go. Zed and Denelor say we should wipe their memories, and give them back to the elves to live out the rest of their lives, however much they get with those bastards, and they've got most of the dragons on their side. Mother isn't decided, yet- Kala and Father Dragon say that they should both go free. Not good odds for them.:/i  
  
No, they weren't- but what could we do? Let them go and see what happened?  
  
With reluctance, I sat in my chair and tried to keep an open mind as the arguments commence in full. 


	12. Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve  
  
Yeah, I'm back. After a nice, long intermission. Hope you enjoyed it, everyone. I probably won't add another chapter until after the winter holidays, so happy Chanukah, merry Christmas, ....krazy Kwanza, joyful Winter Solstice, Happy Rhamadon(is that in the winter?) and have a wonderful whatever-you-celebrate. *distributes presents to reviewers.*  
  
Haldor, then Katha. Enjoy!  
  
Kelyon woke up a few hours later, before the Halfbloods had reached a decision on what to do with us. I sat next to him, on his bed, as he stirred, his eyes and mind only just getting used to the sight of stone and his body relaxing onto the new sensation of feather-mattress and cloth. He blinked, looked to me, and shook his head, as if not daring to believe it.  
  
"The Wizards," I said, in explanation. "The- the humans are here, too, Kel. They- don't know what to do with us, I think."  
  
Somehow, within my soul, there was a little voice, worrying on my false confidence. He won't love you anymore, it chirped. He had others, others around, now, and you'll be left alone when he comes to his senses....  
  
That little voice shut the hell up when Kelyon leaned forwards and kissed me. After he was done, I pushed him back, onto the bed, and leaned over to continue, not wanting him to get tired.  
  
The wooden door opened, and a feminine, but deep, chuckle was let out of the entering body. I sat up, seeing, not the shape-shifted dragon in the form of the bloodred-haired Halfblood, but the human mate of the Chief Priest.  
  
"So, that would be why Shana's undecided, yes?" she said, smiling prettily as she let herself in. I sat up, glaring at her, though nearly immediately, I liked her, for a human. She HAD been the one to defend us to the older Halfblood, after all- and now she brushed me aside with a hand, smiling into my eyes. "This will only take a second, though do be quiet, will you? I'm not- technically- supposed to do this yet, it hasn't been decided. I just want to put my point across." With that, she pulled something from her pocket, and leaned over Kelyon, the tip of her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth. I stood up to protest, ignoring the wave of dizziness, just as a click could be heard from Kelyon's neck.  
  
She sat up with an air of triumph, pulling the iron collar from a stumped Kel's neck and putting it on the bed. "It's easier after the first few times," she told us, her eyes twinkling. After that, she had me lie down, and preformed the same task for me.  
  
The collar peeled away from my neck like the second skin it had nearly become, fastened there for so long. It felt good to, at long last, have my neck collarless and free. Breathing came easier, and I rubbed my neck, finding it scarred and burned. Kala looked down, making a small sound of pity.  
  
"Well, at least the damned things are off," she said, cheerfully. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to put a point across." ____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
Kala came storming back into the main cavern in the same fury she'd had when she left, nearly tripping over my tail as she passed me. I was in full dragon form, and felt the better for it- it was so TERRIBLY cramped, walking around in a human body.  
  
She had an unknown load clutched in her arms, looking very self-satisfied indeed. All eyes turned to her as she cleared her throat, then dropped two collars and two chains on the stone floor. This fact slowly dawned on everyone around me, while, myself; I glowed. Father Dragon also looked at her with an expression of approval- unfortunately, we were the only ones. Shana looked exasperated and unbelieving, and her own husband shook his head in disappointment.  
  
Kala, however, was not to be daunted. "I think it would be stating the obvious if I said I didn't agree with keeping Kelyon and Haldor as our slaves, anymore. Keep this in mind, and keep in mind that if I see the two elves with collars on, every last one we have will be jammed and thrown into the damned corner of the damned Citadel. Now, should we vote?"  
  
I didn't want to hear the voting, so after I put in my lot I stole away to find Kelyon and Haldor, shifting a little smaller as not to be intimidating.  
  
"Greetings, Lords," I said, brightly, entering their rooms. They still looked awful- how can one say that someone as sickly and obviously dying as these two are dangerous?  
  
"Dragon," grunted Kel, though he looked a little brighter and was feeling the flesh that had once been obscured by a collar in fascination. Haldor glanced over me, but deciding I wasn't going to drag them away, looked back at the wall.  
  
"Kathakareal. You can call me Katha." I smiled, sitting down with my tail coiled around my forelegs. "I thought perhaps you might want a briefing?"  
  
"Have they voted?" Kelyon looked up at me with fear in his eyes, and I felt more pity for him.  
  
"No, but they are, and I know what they're voting. The options are five- they can trade you as the traitors who saved the Wizards to the elves for more time, they can give you back to the Iron People, they can kill you, they can go with Zed's plan, or just let you go."  
  
"Zed's plan?"  
  
"They can clean your minds, replant memories, and send you back to the elves." At Kelyon's look of horror and Haldor's sudden interest, I supposed they didn't like that plan. Kel stole a look at Haldor, closing his eyes slowly and turning back to me.  
  
It was Haldor who spoke next. "I don't understand," he hissed, "how we can be surrounded by people who can pry every one of our thoughts from our heads and change them, but they won't look into our heads and determine for themselves whether we should be let free or not."  
  
I tried not to openly stare at him, but it was a close shot. "I- I believe they forgot about that," I stuttered, trying to force myself to turn around and find Shana and the Council before they voted and not to stand here and consider their stupidity. ____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
Shana stared openly at me, then shook her head. "I think," she said slowly, with amusement, "that we forgot we are Wizards."  
  
"I'll do it," offered Lorryn at the same time Mero said, "Shana should do it."  
  
"Yes, let the little Elvenbane do it," spat Caellach. "As long as she doesn't lie, it's fine with me!"  
  
There was a pause, as the Elvenbane in question looked around the room, almost looking hopeful that someone would step forward and openly protest. When that didn't happen, and the room grew almost horridly silent, she allowed a faint sigh to escape her mask. "I will," said Lashana with resignation. "Would you like to come, Kathakareal?"  
  
I wondered why, for a moment- but then, the two liked me, and knew I wasn't one of the people who wanted to trade them back to the Iron People. Perhaps it made sense. I didn't answer, but I knew she's know the answer when I followed her. "We only have to do one of them," I told her. "Personally, I suggest Kelyon- but only if he's up to it. We might have to wait until both have rested, and to hell with their impatience."  
  
Shana turned to me, looking up into my eyes. "Do you think that's best?" she asked, and I nodded, seeing the exhaustion in her eyes as she turned to go to her rooms, to rest, leaving me to inform the Council that the discussion would take place when both parties were ready.  
  
Then, to the tunnels for a well-deserved rest. 


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen  
  
Eep! Unlucky! Satan! Tredecaphobia!  
  
Okay.  
  
Yes, it's Ember, writing this Author's notes for the second time, because her computer is bing mean. However, this doesn't daunt my cheer! I hope all you nice, literate people had wonderful holidays, should you participate in a religion that celebrates a holiday in December- most do, so I would assume this is safe to post. (I got a sword for Christmas!) I hope you all have a nice New Year's, as well- and in light of this event, I wrote a short list of New Year's resolutions, which I hope that you take the time to skip, and get on with the story.  
  
*Pass Algrebra *Stuff at least forty-four grapes into my mouth at once *Pass Spanish II Honors *Update this story more *Eet mor chiken *Finish "The Society of the Gryphon's Shadow" *Learn to breakdance *Find a soulmate  
  
Enjoy!  
  
Kelyon.  
  
Speaking of which- have you notice that all this time I've been spelling his name wrong? It would be infuriating to start spelling it "Kelyan" now, but I'd like you to know that I, too, know this. ^_^  
  
The bitter cold reminds me Of all the distance we have crossed And if your darkness blinds me I could never be more lost But I'm not the one who seeks your protection And I'm not the one to share your disguise And I'm not the one that reeks of rejection I'm not the one to tear the same way twice!  
  
--Spineshank, "Smothered"  
  
I waited, patiently, in the room that Shana had directed me too- a lizard watched me from inside, it's- her, as it was almost definitely the annoying dragon Kathakareal- head to one side and massive eyes blinking rapidly.  
  
"Well?" I asked it. It drew back a little, probably surprised I would even notice it among all the other lizards- until I shook my head and called her by name. "Katha, Shana won't mind you being in here, I don't think."  
  
The lizard then looked at me, and shook it's own head, blinking some more. Lizards, of course, don't have eyelids- the second I thought that, Katha stopped blinking and the eyelids were gone.  
  
"Ready?" asked Shana from the doorway, her cat-pupiled eyes shielded from the glare of the mage-lights. I glanced at them in envy- making a light to balance on my hand was hard enough- getting one to float in midair impossible, and getting one to stay lighted for as long as the Citadel was running, unthinkable. I would have made the wilderness a lot easier, though.  
  
"Sure," I growled, looking for Katha, but she had vanished into the wall. "So long as it shuts up your little friends out there, Halfblood."  
  
Shana sighed. "Caellach is NOT my friend," she said, softly, sitting next to me with grace a few select Elven ladies would envy. "And with every word that comes out of that huge mouth of his, he loses another supporter. He didn't want this, he didn't think it was a valuable use of time and he thinks that you very well may have memories planted in your skull. Personally, I would prefer not to do this."  
  
That made two of us. I shook my head, and leaned back. "Tell me, Shana- if you find nothing wrong with us, what's going to happen? What's the likelihood you could get away with just... letting us go?"  
  
She sighed. "Not very good. Not good at all, actually. After I do this I tell them what I saw- then we vote again. You can come to this one, if you want- it can't be worse than sitting in your little room waiting for us." No shit- I had to agree. I was allowed limited privileges in the Wizard's Citadel, but I didn't take advantage of them, because Haldor and I rarely ventured from our rooms. Two of three full Elven in the whole cave complex, we stuck out painfully well, and the suspicious glares and embarrassed laughs weren't worth getting dinner before it was cold.  
  
I didn't ask what would happen if my memories weren't concrete data that could be used for us. I couldn't imagine sitting back in the tent, watching Haldor sink back into madness and being helpless to aid him. I couldn't think of going back....  
  
Before I realized it, however, I WAS back, back in that tent, closing my eyes and trying to fight back the headaches and nausea that came after the illusion weaving. I also found myself, oddly enough, in control of the own reading of my memories- horrified by the first, I pushed it away, thinking, hard, about the escape. Weaving the illusion of the alicorn herds, knowing only a few would work but not wanting to fuck up my only chance of escape. The memory of finding myself on the grass, far away from the Iron People's encampment, Haldor next to me, relishing the moss. Of cold nights and half- burned meat around cozy little half-fires and warm embers, of the tame alicorn and our first kiss...  
  
I steered us away from that, to walking through the woods when Haldor was shot. The dragon's whose claws made the arrowheads had long since healed Haldor's wound, the old dragon Kalamadea, a familiar friend, and the younger dragon Kathakareal working primarily with us, as if we were dogs first being trained to a hand. I saw him falling, remembered running back for him, and dragging him away. After that, there was the thought, the memory, of conjuring the illusion of the dragon to scare away the Elven armies, and then, I had blacked out, and my emotions, raw and untainted, came rushing through the link through Shana, me to me. Bitterness, impatience, disbelief, exhaustion. The last had come magnified from Shana, who staggered away from me, caught obviously between her own mental workout and the pain of my memories.  
  
"Shit," she snapped, and sat on the bed beside me. It occurred to me, then, watching her close her eyes and try to maintain posture- Shana was a person.  
  
People were rare, are rare. Everyone must be a political genius, a master mage, a leader, warrior, priest or hero. Everyone must be a thing, an ideal, a half-formed plot. Soulless, lifeless, nothing but title. Lashana, the Elvenbane, WAS a master mage, she WAS a leader, she WAS a hero. And through all that was a battered, shoved aside, ignored person, coming out only when Shana the Leader of the Wizards, General Lashana and the Elvenbane were all too worn out to keep control.  
  
I felt sorry for her. Isn't that odd? Here I was, teetering on the edge of being killed, enslaved or sent off without memories or emotions by the very people whose fucking existence was owed to myself and Haldor, and I felt sorry for one of them. All of them, come to that. The old leader of them, without the control of his age that his Elven ancestors had maintained, watching what he had worked so hard on fall apart; the younger but unfamiliar Wizard trying to keep trade with the Iron People by finding iron. The dragons, who, if what they told me was correct, were sundered exiles, no longer wanted among their own.  
  
Ancestors, but life is shit.  
  
I shook my head, leaning on the stone wall. A lizard cocked her head at me, winked, and vanished again into the wall. She returned with a crystal of simple amethyst, and, nearly smiling, dropped it from her mouth and disappeared.  
  
Heh. I didn't have a fucking clue what such a thing could do, I just picked it up. Ultimately, power flowed back into me, not killing my headache, that had just started, but restoring what had not yet healed with time. I stared down at it, winking in the light, and Shana looked down at it.  
  
"What the hell?!" she shrieked, and I dropped it, expecting it MUST be killing me. "Where did you get that?!"  
  
A lizard gave it to me? No. "I found it."  
  
Her voice dropped, suddenly. "Do you know what those things do?" she spat, glaring at me in an unnerving way. Trust Katha to give me something I'm not supposed to have! Was such a callous disregard for rules common among the dragonfolk?  
  
"No."  
  
She relaxed, suddenly. "Thank god," she breathed, softly. "Kelyon, give it to me."  
  
I didn't ask questions; if she wanted the amethyst so bad, she could have it. I dropped it into her palm, unnerved by her spasm of... whatever. With that, I returned to my rooms, where Haldor waited. ____________________________________________________________________________ ______ "Are you sure you're not going?" Katha asked, her Halfblood head cocked in a draconic fashion. "It's... well, it's important, you know."  
  
I looked at the bed, then at Haldor. "Oh, we're going," I replied, transferring my gaze to the crude 'hallway' outside of the door.  
  
"It's started," the dragon said, as if I didn't know. My stomach was shifting like a pissed-off alicorn, readying for a charge. I didn't really want to die, come to think of it. Not at all.  
  
"I know," I told her. "I just don't want to sit through Shana telling me about what happened to me, already. I can figure it out later." The last was told a tad sarcastically, but Katha didn't seem to care. She just closed her eyes, and I felt behind my eyes that she was contacting someone telepathically. When they opened, she drifted for the door, motioning me behind her.  
  
"Shana's almost done about you," she said, as Haldor proceeded me behind her. "By the time we get there, the voting will start. Well- first everyone has their say, to persuade people to vote their way. Your presence might make it harder on Diric- that'd be good."  
  
Yeah, it would- he wasn't a BAD man, in any fashion, but perhaps he had the typical attitude for things he considered his. The common room loomed overhead, lit dimly by magelights. The crowd around the Inner Circle- Parth Agon, Lashana, Father Dragon in Halfblood form, Kala and Diric, Danae, Lorryn, Mero and, somehow, Caellach, where Alara in dragon form, a small collection of what had to be wizards and shifted dragons, a gaggle of humans, and an Elven girl, the girl Rena. They looked up as we entered, and I hated the way their eyes traveled over us or stuck on us, not to move until we had seated lest we attack them with the levin-bolts we could barely summon if we borrowed power from each other. We sat near Mero, across from Caellach, who scowled as we entered. Lashana smiled, softly, Diric frowned guiltily, and Kala grinned openly.  
  
"Welcome, elves," growled Alara behind us, and while Haldor gave her a curt and unafraid bow, I ignored her completely. Let them do whatever they wanted- I was here to hear what the hell was happening to me, and I was NOT going to act like it was a social call.  
  
Caellach spoke first, but I didn't listen to him; I knew what he was going to say, and I knew that it would bore the fucking hell out of me to listen, so I turned my attention inward, trying to calm my nerves as at last, the Wizard curmudgeon sat down and Shana stood up, telling everyone that she thought that I should be let free. THAT surprised me- I knew that she had been hit hard by the memories that lurked inside my head, but I never thought of Lashana as being the type to make a decision based on what she felt. Kala stood as she sat, a warm smile on her face.  
  
"I agree," she said, a faint accent tinging her human voice. "Personally, I think that we didn't have to go through all of this, given life-debt it's proper credit and that we-"  
  
"I will NOT share my living quarters with two half-crazed Elven faggots!" cried Caellach in a sudden, angry outburst. Haldor and I rose as one, anger boiling in my chest as I pulled back one hand and gathered as much magic energy as I could for a levin-bolt. The older Wizard smiled, his crooked teeth pointing out of his mouth- his magic was stronger than our's together, and now he had us, proof we were unstable...  
  
"Kelyon, Haldor. Sit down." The tone of Kalamadea's voice encouraged instant obedience, and was fouled with bitter rage- however, the point of that weapon was not pointed at us. As we sank to our seats, he rose, towering even in the guise of a helpless old man. Kathakareal, back in dragon form, and Alara, behind us, also loomed over the suddenly- disgruntled Caellach.  
  
"You have already had the chance to speak, Caellach," snarled Father Dragon, his calm tone at great odds with his fire-bitten eyes. "And allow me the honor of being the first to tell you- your childish prejudices amuse NO ONE ANYMORE!"  
  
"Sit down!" hissed Alara, snapping at the air with her huge maw. Perhaps it was their shape-shifting ability that made them so goddamned terrifying when mad, perhaps they changed their form to match their mood, but as it was, Caellach sank to his own seat with the air of a scolded puppy.  
  
Katha said nothing, simply looked as if Caellach moved so much as another hair on his head, she would tear the whole damned thing off. That, of course, spoke a thousand words. ____________________________________________________________________________ ______  
  
The vote was a tie.  
  
"Shit," I said, leaning back against the stone wall behind my bed. "Bullshit! This fucking thing won't fucking end, will it?"  
  
Katha shook her head. "Quite the contrary, Kelyon. The elves have beat back the Young Lords, and are getting pretty damned close to the Citadel. I'm afraid that this has to end, soon, either way. The elves had better magic- even though they can't use it around all the iron, we can't use our's, so that's a draw."  
  
"But they have armies of humans," growled Haldor, shaking his head in disgust. "So we have to be discarded or shoved to the side, eventually. Shit. Oh, fuck."  
  
"Don't be stupid," the dragon replied, a smile lighting up her reptilian features. She said she was one of the better shifters, but she didn't shift too often, preferring to simply become a smaller dragon when the occasion arose. "What do you think we've been doing? You aren't staying here, my friends."  
  
I had to start, staring at the dragon. "What the hell?" I asked politely, shaking my head. "You're kidding."  
  
"Nope," said Katha, her head drawn back and her nares flushing crimson with pride. "Kala and I've been working on something- you'll see. 


	14. Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Ironically, I began chapter fourteen in the uber-abandonment between putting chapters one and two up of , after my second abandonment of writing the story in general. (I was working on this fic during the weeks after putting up chapter one and stalling putting up chapter two. During this time, I abandoned writing, then came back to this very chapter.) Altogether, I've abandoned this thing four times, and have nineteen chapters written.

Anywho, all that was ironic because it seems I have abandoned this. Again. I've taken forever to get this chapter up, and I'm very, very sorry. And speaking of taking forever, a much belated happy first year anniversary to ElvenBound! Yes, it's been more than a whole fucking year since I started working on this bitch! All those who have actually, through some brilliance of attention spans that I could never, in all my life, posess, kept up with this story since it first began, such mammoth cookies to you that you are overwhelmed by the chocolate-chunk greatness. Enjoy and review, all.

The black and cold reminds me

Of all the distance we have crossed

And if your darkness blinds me

I could never be more lost

But I'm not the one who seeks your protection

I'm not the one to share the disguise

And I'm not the one who reeks of rejection

I'm not the one to tear the same way twice

--Spineshank, "Smothered"

The second time you escape from captivity is just as exhilerating as the first. Elves weren't made for captivity, which seems strange if you consider society, keeping some elves in slavery and some who don't care if they never leave their keeps again, but the point is, neither knows how trapped they really are. Once that hits home, you're screwed, buddy.

After a discussion between Katha and Haldor, in which they argued whether they would fly or walk- Haldor didn't want to get back into the air, and though I didn't remember the only time I had flown, mysterious bruises on particularly delicate parts of my anatomy suggested I agreed with him- we decided to fly as far as we could for half the time, then walk for the rest. Before we reached the elven cities we decided to shoot for, Katha would shift, in the future-failing plan A, into a wild-looking horse and we would ride into the cities, telling some story we would make up on the way about wild humans that tried to attack us, and captured us,and how we stole their mounts and rode away. Gloriously. Leaving out several parts, like the halfbloods, the dragons, the fact that we fell in love while actually half-starving, walking along muddy ground, drowning ourselves, and eventually nearly killing ourselves trying to tame an alicorn, feed ourselves, save a very ungrateful civilization and escaping again on dragonback. Makes a romantic tale, but let's keep it under our hats, shall we?

And, of course, we couldn't tell them where the humans were. No, we owed one of them too much for that. Kala, Diric's better half, waved goodbye as she sat down on a rock, grinning ear to ear at her own cleverness. And why shouldn't she? Had it not been her who instigated the whole thing, from giving us iron bracelets that stung and itched but worked to keep scrying spells away, holding them until we have left under the guise of a human- the final humiliation, I suppose; no halfblood could watch an elf leave without telling them to go haul water- then giving them to us, herding Katha out and sending us on our way without anyone any the wiser?

So, yes, our stories would be tightly controlled and discreet, but between us, we could probably evade most questions if anyone tried prying the truth out of us with magic- any other method would be easy enough. Haldor, luckily enough, spent most of his time in the elven cities sampling illegal drugs- there's really not much else you could do, if I had known how easy it was to get them, I would have, too- and knew how to lie and make it sound convincing.

"Hold on," Kathakareal said over her shoulder, her neck twisting around at an angle that looked painful, even though the dragon took it in stride, without wincing. Then she hunkered down, spread her wings, and jumped, flapping down hard. Haldor and I were on her shoulders, the more fool us, and I got a good lesson in dragon anatomy those first few moments. That is, I could tell you exactly how dragon wings worked by pointing to the bruises. "Yeah, and after that, she jerked her wings back up and sort of twisted... that's those...."

My palms were skinned bare by clasping Katha's spines until my knuckles ached, and parts of my body that weren't used to riding dragons bareback revolted openly and painfully. I swear, if I hear one more ballad about how wonderful it is to ride on dragons in the 'great blue ocean, among the birds' I will dileberatly copy said bruises onto that bard, to show him the 'glory of dragon riding.'

I wasn't on a good mood, I beg you to understand, when we landed at last.

"Dammit," groaned Haldor, half-falling from the dragon's back. I gave him a half-smile in return as I stiffly got from behind Katha's neck and winced as portions of my body rubbed against other portions and the aching began again. Ah, shit. As slowly as I have ever done anything in my life, I straightened up, breathing out a little gasp as I finally got straight and managed to half-stagger, half drop onto a little bit of clear ground near a clearing big enough to host a fire, in a minute or two.

The red-and-silver dragon, looking from Haldor to me, flashed a sadistic grin. "Okay," she said, shimmering and blinking for a moment before reappearing as a human girl, with bright blue eyes and a cascade of red hair, flecked with bits of silver. "We'll do it your way, after this."

Haldor glared at her for a moment, then grunted and walked off. Firewood, I expected. Looking at Katha from head to toe, I had to shake my head. Look at her! Flamboyant to her damned grave, the lizard. "That disguise isn't going to work, Katha," I told her. The comment was spawned of the newly-created Plan B, which was created when Katha decided against leaving us to our own devices. The plan was, of course, that she would become a human later on and follow us around- she wouldn't lose this chance, after all. This was a prime opportunity to fuck with- not one, not two, but three different species, four if you included the dragons. She wasn't going to do it as a horse.

"Of course not," she said, grinning. "I don't want people to look right over your shoulder, after all, Kel my friend. I'll become a good deal less beautiful, perhaps a little more plausible that I'd be able to survive a trek like the one we'll have supposedly taken."

"Of course," I replied, looking over her shoulder as Haldor, bearing two armfuls of dry and ready wood, staggered out of the woods. I smiled, getting up to help him, as Katha at once began to arrange rocks in a circle, to contain the future flames. As we both began to unload our burdens, she held out a hand- and dancing lightning arched down the to wood, snapping between splinters and twigs, until little bits of wood began to combust into flames, one by one. The fire swelled a little, then died back into a normal flame, bright and dancing, throwing our shadows to the ground as the sun continued to sink, leaving the woods beyond the reach of our fires in utter darkness.

"Moon-dark, tonight," commented Katha, seeming not at all wearied by her little show. Dammit, but she was as good as Dyran- perhaps better. I was more pleased that she had vollunteered to remain with us after getting us to the Elven lands than I had ever been before- and mind, I hadn't been exactly moping about it, before. The fact that she was willing to trust us enough to let us get back to the elves said quite a bit on it's own, even if she was babysitting us the whole time.

Damn, but I was going to owe this dragon my soul, by the time it was all over.

The attractive red-haired maiden was gone by the time we got the the Elven city of Archan, on the border of Kyrtian's forests, replaced by a Iron woman with a mass of curly hair, tied back with a leather thong, tattered but not revealing clothes, a hoade of iron earrings and necklaces, and the most lovely steel-colored eyes any human has ever possessed. She also wore a disgusted expression as she watched Haldor and I, at the edge of the woods, looked down on the city below.

"Of all the cold and heartless Elven Lords in the world," she spat, "I get the two sentimental ones."

Haldor smirked, I made a rude gesture. "It's not-" I started- well, bullshit. I had been riding on and talking to Katha for three days, now, and if I had learned a damn thing, it's that you cannot win an argument with her. Still, she wasn't going to get us to move for a minute or two- after this, Haldor and I were going to be forced to act that nothing had happened between us, and I would be damned if our last few seconds of freedom were going to be spent dragged across the grass by a rabid dragon.

At last, she got us out of the woods, not even having to drag us, which was for the best given that if anyone had seen it, the whole thing was gong to be damned. We had discarded the glorous entrance- it was Katha's idea- in favor of the faithful-human savior type story, with the dragon-turned-human rescuing us and getting us out of there. With more emphasis on what we did, as opposed to Katharyn, the Iron woman, which would make it more plausable to the slightly baised elves who would hear our story. Given, of course, that anyone gave a damn.

The Elven Lord Kyrtian had a strange reputation for being mad and obsessed with warfare; not the sort of man you wanted to get to help you when you wandered from the forest, starving, sick, and hurt. We would go to the city built near to his lands, instead, and get shelter and help there. Then we would stagger up to the Council with false information and whimper and beg until our stories were believed, and the elves marched off on a wild goose chase, and we were home and Katha had screwed up society and Shana wasn't dead, and it was all good again.

Leaning heavily on a thick bough I had found on the ground, I staggered into the city, gasping for breath.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Shana/Gel

Here all your walls surround me

They're closing in they've blocked my sight

The violence all around me

Found me when I could not fight

You push from the inside

Smothered

You push from the inside out

--Spinkeshank, "Smothered"

I tried breathing deeply. I tried counting to ten. Dammit, I tried counting to bloody seven thousand! He just kept talking, and talking, and talking, and there was bloody nothing I could bloody do! Fire and Rain, but if I hadn't covered the ground in iron, I would have blasted the old man's raisin-like head into tiny little smithereens long bloody ago!

"Listen-" I started- started, mind, because I wasn't about to be able to finish.

"They're gone!" screamed an old halfblood woman, leering up at me. "They're gone, and now we're all bloody doomed because you can't kill the people who deserve to die!"

Never underestimate old curmudgeons in large numbers.

Calleach was, of course, the ringleader. And there were about twelve other elderly halfblood, mostly male but with one or two old women in there, and rather disappointingly, there was Diric, looking like a demon had taken over him and was lighting fires behind his eyeballs.

Behind me, of course, were Mero and Keman, and then Kala, looking like a young girl as she perched on a rock and grinned like a devil herself. There was no doubt in my mind that where ever Kelyon and Haldor were, she had put her hand in it.

"They-" I began again.

"Where are the two Elven Lords?" snapped Calleach, looking about as pissed off as I was- but he didn't have the grounds I did. He was angry because he was a stubborn only asshole with testicles like bloody- well, he didn't have grounds to be angry.

"I don't bloody know!" I growled back, trying to scare the old men. I failed. General or no, prophesy or no, people just aren't scared when you want them to be. "They-"

"They know where we are, Elvenbane! They'll lead the elves- if they-"

"It's amazing how every time you open your mouth you prove you're an idiot!" I screamed at him, tired of this exchange. "I don't know where Kelyon and Haldor are, I've been wearing myself out looking for them on Keman's back, but I don't know where they are and I can't find them. They must be wearing iron or something, I can't scry for them, but even if they got back to the elves, even if they aren't shot on sight, even if they can remember their way back here, the elves know the general direction anyway, from Myre. She can probably lead them here! And chances are very slim that without help-"

"Kathakareal's gone!"

I really hate being interrupted.

It was, of all people, Kalamadea who stormed into the main room of the Citadel, and not nearly to my rescue, as he always used to. He was losing control over his form, which was absurd, given that this was Father Dragon, eternally calm, adept at any magic. His hands were springing claws, and he was limping as his leg joints began to change directions.

"Calm down, Father Dragon," hissed Keman, practically flying over to the Elder dragon's assistance. Kalamadea took the offered hand and took a deep breath, calming down visibly and regaining control over his form. Then he shook off Keman and began jogging for me, fooling me for an instant into thinking he was here to berate me, too.

Then his voice came into my mind. _:Shana, it's urgent. Katha is gone.:_

It seemed to me Katha was always gone, but I shouldered aside the curmudgeons and let the Elder dragon lead me outside anyway. He was sputtering as we walked, and as soon as he was outside, he erupted from his Halfblood form into the full dragon he was supposed to be. Huge, towering, menacing, he looked down at me with fear in his face that I would have never imagined. _:She's gone, Shana. she's been gone for a few days, now, and I-:_

"Father Dragon," I said, calmly, putting a hand on his foreleg, "It's okay. She'll be fine." Kala was jogging from the cave, having obviously narrowly escaped from the curmudgeons.

"Of course she will," she said, behind me, her older body moving stiffly as she jogged to Kalamadea's side. "She's got wits, herself, and two elves to protect her, besides."

"What?"

"I knew it!" screamed Father Dragon, beating his wings for emphasis. He spoke in the language of the elves, now, so Kala could hear- the language spell that Lorryn knew had taught her the fluid but complicated tongue, though the dragons wouldn't let any but myself and their kind know the language of the Kin. "I knew it! That ignorant little dragon walked right into the maw of the elves, leading two more who could be traitors, and she's all mixed up in this!" Then he gave a shiver, and ducked his head, calming down visibly. When he looked up again, the calm, ethereal Kalamadea met my eyes, and grinned. "I'm actually quite proud of her."

"You are?" You have to understand, I was still accepting that Kathakareal had stolen Kelyon and Haldor and whisked them back to the Elven cities, and Kala had helped them, adorned them in iron that would keep me from scrying on them, armed with knowledge of our weaknesses, our strengths, whatever else they had learned in this place. "Why?"

"She reminds me of myself," was the dragon's reply. "Disobeying the Elders to help those who we screwed up so much. Doing so in secret, not knowing if she would ruin everything, but unwilling to let the Kin do so. Yes- she reminds me of me. A better me."

Kala had been about to say something, but at Kalama's words, her mouth snapped shut. My mouth sagged open, and I had to try several times before I could get my voice to work.

"That's different!" I at last protested. "The elves- we are- well, you have to admit-"

"Now, Shana, you sound like Calleach, when you outwit him with something particularly clever. You know you're on the wrong, but you refuse to admit it." Mero, who must have followed us out here when we first left, was dangling at my shoulder like the shadow he was nicknamed for. "Gasping for words, you might say. Certainly not very graceful."

I shook my head, and tried to recover my senses. Okay. Katha was not a traitor. This was a hard bump to overcome, but she was no more a traitor than Keman or Alara- simply another of the Kin following her heart, not the Unwritten Law. Perhaps this Law was newer than the one Foster Mother ignored, but it wasn't necessarily infallible, and Katha wasn't a worse person for breaking IT than Father Dragon for breaking the older one.

Thinking the act harmless, however, could be fatal. Ignoring Kelyon and Haldor's knowledge and race could be as stupid as sticking a finger in a baby snake's mouth- just because it's young doesn't mean that it's poison is weak. I let out a breath I had probably been holding, and shook my head.

"So, what do we do?" I asked.

It had been a long track in these woods, and a fierce battle- it looked like the elven General Kyrtian would get another of his bloodless victories, however. He sat on the sidelines, beside me- not because he didn't want to be in the thick of the fighting, but because he was, quite unfortunately, dead already. He didn't look happy about it, I could tell through the slightly golden glow that hovered about him. I, for one, sat beside him, a reddish glow about myself, while those with identical sheens sat in a long time, broken only rarely by the off golden fighter.

"At least you're winning." This had to be said- the leader of the other army, it was my duty to concede defeat, even before the war was over. And the war was nearly over.

Kyrtian looked up, and smiled. "Ah, that's true. You can't always lead the troops home, after a battle." He grinned, then leaned back, looking a great deal more relaxed. "So, what sorts of shit have the elves in the cities gotten themselves mixed up in now, Gel?" He was downright cheerful, particularly for a dead man. But then, it helped that he wasn't really dead.

The night before, I had gone to the city not long from here- Lord Kyrtian was world-renowned for never leaving his estate, preferring the company of his warfare games- also world-renowned- to anything the other Elven Lords could concoct, with their breakneck politics, inconsistent fashions, and social arrangements that meant harsh popularity contests with outcasting for any loser. Not too much had changed- then again, there WERE the 'wild' Lords-

"Do you know who Kelyon el-Lord Kresser and Haldor el-Lord Braul are?" I asked, knowing that if anyone on this estate knew those names, it would be Kyrtian, not his notoriously anti-gossip mother or any of the socially outcaste slaves.

"Hmm? Of course. Oh- sorry, I keep forgetting you aren't an Elven Lord, Gel." Whether this was a compliment or an insult, I wasn't and I'm still not sure, but luckily, I didn't have to guess, because Kyrtian didn't wait for a reply. "They were around when your great-grandfather was young, and then, first Haldor, then Kelyon disappeared. Within perhaps a year, I believe the story went. No one knew what happened to them- they weren't heirs, they weren't from influential families, so it's safe to say no one cared, either. It was strange, however- and those stories about Elvenbane were circling when they disappeared, so it set everyone on edge for a year or so."

Well. Wasn't THAT interesting? "Really? Rumor has it- and it's only rumor, mind- that they're back."

Kyrtian's response was far from expected. "Are you serious?!" he yelped, drawing the attention of everyone around him- most of the fighters were down, now, and so it didn't have much effect on the battlefield. "They just... reappeared?"

"It's only a rumor," I replied, unsure about how accurate these wandering opinions were.

"Think, Gel." Obviously, Kyrtian had no more trouble remembering I was human. "Why would someone make up a story about someone like Kelyon or Haldor? They aren't politically important, or notorious for anything whatsoever- most people have probably decided they were dead and entirely forgotten about them. If it was me, there would be stories about the insane Lord Kyrtian reappearing everywhere- and take Dyran, for instance. You can't believe anything you hear about him- you couldn't while he was alive, and you can't now. He was powerful, and important, and people can't resist pretending they know more than everyone around them. It's unlikely, however, that this particular rumor, about two people most everyone has forgotten about and saying in a group of friends won't make you look any better than before, is merely a story, my friend."

Ah. Well, when you put it from that perspective, it did look rather likely. But still- outside of these articulated cities, where could a pair of weak, spoiled elves LIVE? Where would they survive? It would be like throwing a bondling slave in a tiger pit, and I said so.

"Well, really, the weaker of the elves are generally the more resourceful. They can do things even if they CAN'T dredge up a miracle to do it for them. Come to think of it, having one or two Haldor's might have been useful in the army that lost against the Halfbloods." Kyrtian's grin suddenly turned wildly malicious, and I knew why. "Not that he could have done anything against the monster dragon, of course."

That caused a bit of a laugh to come out among the dead forces. Kyrtian had waited a week or two, then decided that the dragon, so fierce and terrible, was an illusion. There had been someone away from the 'blighted' battlefield where, for some reason, magic didn't work for either side, who had cast an intricate illusion and sent it after the elves. After all, there were NO dead aside from what you would expect in a skirmish- and the witnesses had sworn that the monster appeared in a firestorm that should have wiped out nearly the entire army. And then these enormous beasts had simply stopped, once having chased the elves from their territories, and this seemed immensely unlikely. Alone, they were coincidences. Together, they stank of deception.

Of course, the High Lords wouldn't see it like that. Too much of a blow to their pride.

As the battle drew to a close, Gel bowed with an ironic grin to the Elven Lord who had defeated him, and maliciously admitted defeat. "Now, what to do?"

"Now, we keep tabs on our lost friends. And see whether rumor plays out, this time."


	16. Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Alright. Here we go again. Myre.

Will you come home and

Stop this pain tonight

Stop this pain tonight

Don't waste your time

On me you're

Already

A voice inside my head

Miss you....

Blink182, Miss You

How could a plan I've been working on for so long fail? How could it merely fall in flames, destroyed, ruined, dirtied? It was brilliant- leading elves against halfbloods and humans against elves and, eventually, halfbloods against humans, and my little friends in their primitive Citadel helping me along the way, and two fucking elves with metal collars and annoying little heroic aspirations could come along and drop an illusionous bomb onto the whole thing. Damn them.

"Lady Myre." The small, insignificant beast who was addressing me nearly pissed right there on the floor as I allowed my gaze to drift across the room and land, pointedly, on his head. A human, somewhat larger than most of their pitiful kin, came so close to dropping the sword-sized file he held that I figured it was time to teach him a bit of a lesson. As he fell back, blue lightning crawling over his body, I settled back down and watched him, trying not to tear him in half. These humans were an aggravating lot- and between their distinctive cowardice and the elves' haughty arrogance, they were all lucky I didn't kill them where they stood.

"Did you at least finish?" I growled- no, I must be honest- I flatly THUNDERED. Newly sharpened claws tapped against the cement floor of the Hold the elves had given me, softly scraping along the rock. The human couldn't speak, I'm pleased to report- he only trembled and nodded, almost hysterically. I decided his lesson had been learned, and I allowed my gaze to wander a little less directly on his back.

"What was it you wanted to report, human?" I snapped, fully aware that none of my little slaves would interrupt my thoughts with pleasantries or to say they were finished. The human, shaking, did not chase after my eyes, but kept his own planted on the cement floor.

"You requested any information on any happenings within the city, Lady Myre!" exclaimed the human, pathetically. "You requested-"

"I remember." The beast was treading on thin ice, and, in keeping with animal stupidity, was unaware of it. "What do you have to REPORT, human, before I tear your head from your body and devour it." He knew I would, too. A mouth full of teeth always helped with credibility.

"The wil- err. The missing elves, Kelyon el-Lord-"

"Kelyon and Haldor?" I prompted, impatient with the human already. "Kelyon and Haldor. There is no use to your formality with me, I know who they are."

"Yes. They returned to the city not too long ago-"

"WHAT?!"

The human quailed, but apparently he was more frightened by the prospect of my anger at him pausing than my anger at being interrupted, so he continued. "-with a wild human named Katharyn, a strange, dark little beast who refuses to be separated from Kelyon and who they say bowed to the superiority of elves-"

"Quiet." He fell silent at the growl, while I mulled over the information that he had already parted with. One of the Iron People- a female, apparently, as my regretful time with the Iron People made obvious that Katharyn was not a male name- had turned traitor and joined Kelyon and Haldor. Or, was sent- I had to remember the scent of that very magic that I smelled on the air around the stampede, and how the dragon's illusion mirrored it. They had saved the Halfbloods, with their too-pure, insane demeanors- why wouldn't they expect a bit of a token in return?

It made sense. They had never owned their own bed-slaves, and I wouldn't have put it past them to have developed a taste. Disgusting brutes, the elves.

"Where are they now?" I had revenge to wreak, and no human was going to get in my way, iron or no.

"Each is staying with his family for the present, Lady Myre," said the slave, cowering before my wrath. "They plan to move to one of the greater Lord's house. Lord Kyndreth suggested that they come here, but Aelmarkin has nominated his cousin for this hosting, since many would likely come with them to formally extract information, and he lives alone with his mother."

Indeed, Lyon- Lord Kyndreth, my bad- had invited myself into his home, and allowed me a spacious room to stretch when I allowed him- and him alone- the information that I wasn't an elf. He wouldn't tell anyone- he had a weapon on his side who couldn't risk leaving his favor, and in return, only he and two or three secluded humans knew of my draconic nature. It was for credit of my sponsor that I did not gut the human slave that was his property, not even when my long claws twitched with the need to. "I do not frequent Elven politics, you imbecilic barbarian. Who is Aelmarkin's cousin, what is the purpose of higher Lords accompanying the low-class ones to his house, and what is his standing in current events?"

The human's face went through an impressive chain of emotions, from confusion that I would ask all of that to a strange expresson at the thought that he shouldn't know- all humans did, however, because they gossiped. I had spent some time as a human slave in Sheyrena's mansion, and knew that well enough. Then to a smug satisfaction as he gave me everything I wanted to know.

Kyrtian. The recluse. Ironic that he and his Hold would- he had at last agreed, more to seem polite and normal than anything else, to hold the elves while they were questioned- would be the center of attention for the next few moons. I was an elf again, Lord Krayer Nateli, which some may find ironic but most of you won't think that much. My story was as bland as I could make it, under the circumstances- I had been the second son to a mildly-powerful Elven family, but rather than sit in luxury and warmth, I had left to pursue a Halfblood child a human woman had grown pregnant with off my disgraceful older brother. I had learned much about the Halfbloods, coming back to find my family in ruins and dishonor and the elves at war. I had decided to lend a hand with my knowlege of the Halfbloods and the dragons that served as their lapdogs, vollunteering my guidance to the Generals.

With as much grace as I could muster, I walked among the crowds, strutting like a cock in season. Rich emerald clothing cascaded around me, falling down like shoulder-blade length hair that fanned around my back. Being an elf was odd- especially an especially attractive male elf- but somehow, rather satisfying. No idiotic brothers saying what I was doing was wrong. No moral elders crying over humans. I was the top predator, surveying my land. There were no obstacles.

My plan was to enslave the human and elven races. Then Mother and Keman would come crawling back on their belly scales as they realized that their little toys weren't good for anything but sharpening claws. The Halfbloods would come to the same fates as their parents. And the dragons would win.

"Lord Nateli," said a harsh voice- the voice of Lord Kyndreth. He loomed over me, looking as calm as a panther regarding his own brand of prey.

The fact of the matter was, V'kel Lyon Lord Kyndreth loomed over everything, everywhere he went. It wasn't as much his height- only slightly greater than average- it was the way he stood, walked, moved, and regarded everything in his environment. It was the singularly predator air about him, like a shimmer of smoke about an open flame.

Today, almost part the silken arrangement Lyon had made his main chambers into, the Elven Lord had draped himself in red silk like scarlet spiderwebs with trim made of woven gold and silver, and beads of jewels. His eyebrows were quirked as he caught me studying him, and he chuckled, sweeping his arm back over those gathered.

"Wonderful turnout."

"I suppose it depends on what you consider wonderful, Lyon." To me, it seemed crowded and stuffy, but once more, there was the satisfaction of knowing that they were all there to be my prey, my victims.

"Lord Kyndreth, Myre," hissed the elf, his eyes bronzing slightly at the edges with anger. "And try to bite back the sardonic comments. They are hardly becoming in a political debate."

"Your pardon, Lord Kyndreth." I was a hunter, biding my time. His little fancies could be catered to.

Lyon, yes, was the only one who knew I was a dragon- and no questions had been asked when he 'adopted' me into his household and put me in with the furniture, arranging things around me. It was lovely, actually- all in House colors and all interwoven with all sorts of alliance colors and colors of enemies who Lyon didn't want to know they were enemies and other, more complicated political movements, but there was at least one bit in each room colored yellow and green. Make of that what you will.

Friendship, it was not. Hunters don't have friendships, they have prey and predators- the prey to stalk, the predators to avoid. Whether I was Lord Kendreth's prey or equal, he hadn't figured out, yet. He still had to figure out that there were sharks bigger than he in the depths of the ocean. Alliance, it was hardly; perhaps a temporary joining of forces, perhaps, and more likely, two people testing the waters with one sample of their grand sweep of enemies.

"Tomorrow, we will accompany Lord Kelyon and Lord Haldor to the hold of Lord Kyrtian. He has requested a few days to... prepare." Despite his words on proper political behavior, a grimace of distaste at the mad Lord flickered across his features. Well, there was a lot of attention from people who didn't want to be caught looking this way on the conversation- maybe he WANTED someone to see he opinion of the Elven Lord. "I don't plan to stay in the keep, but he allows us to know that it is an option."

The question in his statement was obvious. "I might stay," I said, trying to sound rather casual, and thinking about the arrogant elves- don't be confused, I mean the two Lesser ones- who I had revenge to be brought to. It would be very easy if I were right next to, say, Kelyon's room, and I could enter, torture and kill him, and get back to bed, without anyone any the wiser.

He shrugged, but caught my eye significantly. It wasn't merely a warning, or a reminder of what more I had here than at the other Lord's Hold- I knew I couldn't turn into a dragon, there- it was more. A question bubbled up to his eyes. I understood it, it didn't take much; _What is it that you want, there? _It was nothing that concerned him, and I told him with a quelling glare. More question, grudging subsiding. Merely a moment after my verbal answer, the silent argument was over. With a physical shrug, he turned away and began a lively chat with another, more anonymous elf.

I walked away from where he stood, dismissed a casual banter with a young er-Lord, and swallowed down some tasteless wine and food. There were no windows in the wide room, and already I could feel as though I had forgotten how to fly.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

Damn, I hate school. Alright, I'm still catching up to myself, but when I get there we might have further lag as I try to find time between my originals, my schoolwork, and my fics. Thanks to everyone reading and reviewing this; I really appreciate the feedback and it makes me feel less like I'm talking to a wall. Or typing to a wall. Or otherwise communicating... oh, just review the damn story.

Chapter Seventeen

Kelyon

But there's still tomorrow

Forgive the sorrow

I can't be on the last train home

But there's stll tomorrow

Sing, tomorrow

And I can't be on the last train home

But we sing

If we're going no where

And we sing

If it's not enough

And we sing

If we have a reason

To never fall in love

--Lost Prophets, 'Last Train Home'

"It seems like just yesterday that you left home, Kelyon," Katha drawled, as I filled my bags taut for the sixth time, it seemed, since arriving back at elven civilization. "And already, getting married. You're fast, my friend. Very fast."

"Growing up," I replied. "And could you keep it down?"

"Seems like just yesterday," giggled the dragon, falling back on the piles of pillows she slept on, by my bed. According to my own account, she was slightly dim-witted, attatched to me, and overwhelmed by society. If they heard her talking like that, they would see through our plan. What little plan we had.

Well, if she said no one was listening, she was probably right. "It WAS just yesterday, Katha. Haldor's lucky- all he has to do is get to Kyrtian's mansion. He's not the one chosen to be Lyon's playmate, and pretend he knows something about politics. Oh, and you know the marriage isn't until they get the story from us."

Apparently, the dragon of pure evil heard the pain in my voice as the last, most desperate consideration came into play. Nothing else could happen, but at very least- oh, god, at least Haldor could WATCH me get married. Chances were, given that social gatherings between merely two elves was very rare, we wouldn't get time alone after it, so... at least he could watch.

Something.

The dragon was a step behind me before I could blink. "It'll be fine, Kel. You'll be fine. If I have to bomb the whole elven society to make sure, I will."

I tried to force a smile, but it was like trying to curve a steel bar. "And be laughing like a maniac the whole time. I KNOW you, Katha. Don't pretend I don't."

The dragon did smile, but her eyes were brimmed with concern as she watched me from her nest. She had given up everything to get us this far- her second and last Lair, her dignity in the face of elves, her time and comfort, her freedom in acting as a slave. She would bomb the entire elven civilization to get me and Haldor through life alive; who was I to deny her a bout of maddened laughter?

The halls were dim, and I had to flail to find my way around. Katha flailed, too, but she could see fine; it was an actress' ploy, to pretend she couldn't. The room at the end gave us all our light, and I knew it was a diplomatic test of a sorts- to see if I would complain, to see if I would knock anything over, to see if I appeared with anything less than Elven Lord dignity. I wouldn't give them the pleasure- I stopped well before the place where white light shone onto the floor, shuffled to the middle of the hall, and strode confidently down the hall. Fire leapt at my feet, my own illusion- and by the ancestors, I had gotten good at illusions. It looked real, it even had the effect of burning the floor and my boots, though I, of course, felt nothing, as as I passed along the carpet, it regained its white dignity. Katha hadn't stopped struggling, and it took a second to realize that this was to make me look better. Though it hurt, I looked at her once Lyon's eyes were on me, sneered in disgust and embarrassment, and strode with all my grace and magesty into the hall.

The fires died as I bowed, deeply and gracefully, and Katha grinned at me through her own stoop. I had to ignore her, but, knowing she was telepathic, sent her gratitude. "V'kel Lyon Lord Kyndreth," I spoke, with just a hint of respect coloring the words but not making me sound intimadated by the greater Lord. Another bit of politics learned from Katha, who knew about this from ancestors-know-where. As I rose, I spoke: "You requested my presense for verification of the information I am going to give you."

Lyon nodded. "Kelyon el'Lord Kresser," he replied, with just a touch of disdainful interest- just enough to give the impression of curiousity as to what impaled that oozing insect, but not so much as to be insulting. More politics. "I do wish for verification, as you say, but I also wish to express interest as to-" another flash of disgust- "getting to know you."

Like getting too close to a human. "Kelyon," I corrected him- not because I wanted to get to know him better, but because I honestly couldn't imagine answering to 'el'Lord Kresser.'

His faint disgust almost turned into a sneer, and I felt a knife in my chest, wondering if I had done something wrong. But the sneer vanished as fast as it had appeared, and the feeling faded as well, if at a much slower rate. "Kelyon, then," he replied, motioning me for a seat. It wasn't half as high as Lyon's, but it was shockingly comfortable- I'd learn from Katha later that that was so I would sink even further under Lyon's head, but I wasn't thinking of that, then.

"Do you mind that we begin, then, Kelyon?" he asked, and despite the comfort of the iron bracelets around me wrists and a heavy iron necklace under my shirt, I still felt a little shiver of fear. Dry-mouthed, I shook my head, and trying desperatly to recall the reactions I was supposed to feign. There was some amount of agony in the truth spell, when it was first laid, then nothing-

I didn't have to pretend on account of the pain. As soon as Lyon raised his hands, the iron around my wrists and lain on my chest began to burn, hotter and hotter, until I couldn't tell if I had fallen or screamed or what. Katha was channeling the magic away from me, I could tell faintly, because I felt a cool, magic barrier set itself between the heavy iron links and my skin, but she couldn't sheild enough to prevent the iron's benefit, or everything would be lost.

I thought I heard someone laughing, but there was no one here but Lyon, Katha and myself.

"Kelyon el'Lord Kresser," said Lyon, his voice coming in from a fog a million miles away. I had forgotten that the pain was supposed to go away- it was easy when it didn't! The iron still burned like flames against my body, damned hot, tearing apart my mind, and I couldn't do anything about it. So I regained composture, gasping raggedly and clearing my eyes with my will alone.

Damn, it hurt.

"Kelyon!"

"Yes, Lord Kyndreth." I sat slightly higher on the soft couch, gasping still through the pain of the burning. Lyon looked at me strangely, apparently wondering why I was so affected by the spell. Ah, gods.

"Is it true that you were captured by Halfbloods to the west of this city?"

There was a long pause. I wondered if the iron worked. I wondered if it would hurt to lie. I wondered if we would die as soon as I lied, or if we would be given a chance to fight. "Yes."

"Is it true that this creature, Katha, aided your escape?"

This one was easy- I HAD been captured by the Halfbloods, if east of this city, and Katha HAD aided my escape. "Yes."

"Did you encounter the wild humans rumored to be to the south of this city, Kelyon?"

Another pause. Was I supposed to encounter the wild humans? The pain fogged my mind, terrible, horrible, biting like a million snakes. The story.... it was myself and Haldor striking out.... then we met the Halfbloods.... we were captured.... something about Calleach.... humans? At last, the answer came. "There were... a few who were rumored as allies to the Halfbloods," I said, with another little gasp of pain. "A few. Yes. They were migrating from the south to the west, but we didn't encounter the main stream."

The rest went by in a smother of red-hot pain, and if I knew the questions, I wouldn't tell you, because repeating the whole experience hurts a little, and anyway, that much wasted time is hardly efficient. At last, he lifted the spell, and I almost ruined it all by gasping with relief. As soon as we had left the white room and returned to the dark hall, Katha helped me to my room, then disappeared even as I fell onto the bed and closed my eyes to the world.

Grel are not cute animals. Honestly, they make dragons look like dogs and humans like children. Flaky skin, gray hair, and black eyes that don't even hold a spark of life back in them. Once, the Iron People were the Grel Riders. Now, they ride bulls exclusively. I respect them more from riding on a grel than I ever had in watching their wars and drought and plight.

The only time I had ever felt nearly this respectful for them was when I first tried their beer. But that's a different story.

Lord Kyndreth and most of his company rose inside a grel-pulled wagon. Katha, however, had baulked upon entering the canvas structure, saying it was too confining, and I have to admit it stirred some unpleasant memories. Kyndreth had a gate. Kyrtian did not. So Katha and, subsequently, myself, were out on stupid, ugly, bad-paced beasts, with the dragon-lady enjoying herself preposterously and my own anatomy protesting helplessly.

"This is horribly unorthodox," Kyndreth had said when I first had saddled my own mount. It HAD to be a grel. Horses had rougher gates, but they had SOME life in them, even the horribly restrained beasts in Lyon's own stables. But, of course, I had to ride the fucking grel. Katha had mounted her's with Iron People skill and ease, bareback, and had been trotting it around like a lunatic while I was still hauling out the elaborate, leather saddle for my own beast.

"Katha's not one's adverage human," I replied, pulling the saddle on tight and getting into it. It really was IN to it, not ON; unlike any saddle I had ever posessed, this one was more silver than leather, with a huge saddle horn and a pad that was more like a seat. It might have been comfortable, but recent trauma had forced me to swiftly analyze how fast I could get out of the fucking thing, should some attack occurr, and I did not like the result of the analysis. "She's easily frightened, and she's clinging to me."

"This is how humans are supposed to be!" Lyon looked at me with open distaste, unable to see the lie in my words. I had been getting good at lying. This wasn't an observation I was very proud of, oddly enough. I had always wanted to be better at lying- I suppose a few decades of not having any reason to lie broke me of that wish. "It's not something you reward them for!"

"I owe her quite a bit." I had figured, you see, that I had attempted to be the orthodox conclusion of adverage-elf-lost-for-decades, and I deserved a break. Katha made a rude gesture and cast her eyes heavenward, and I concluded I had screwed up.

Lyon's eyes flashed with that personal insult. "You never owe a human, Kelyon." He grinned, a horrible, menacing gesture. "They will give to you, and you will take it. If they do not give to you, you will take it. That is how you succeed- not riding around on a stupid animal, trying to coddle a slave." The words were, perhaps, the harshest of such I had ever heard, and it forced into my face how much I had alienated myself from the rest of my kin.

Was this how Katha felt, outcasted from so many of her Lairs?

I turned back in the saddle to Lyon, but spurred the grel away from him into a swift trot. "I'll keep that in mind," I told him, my voice tightly controlled so no emotion showed through.

"You idiot," snarled Katha, in the Iron People tongue that Kyndreth couldn't understand even if he was spying on us. I'm uncertain when the dragon became fluent in it, but it satisfied our needs.

"My appologies, Katha," I replied, ironically. "I thought I was supposed to be insane."

"Insane and offensive are different things, the way people want to see it!" she replied, softly, so no one would hear the bite in her voice and understand that she was not a terrified, doting eyas. "And Elven Lords always see things the way they want to see them. Even you."

"Truly?"

"Yes. You just want sympathy." Her eyes narrowed, flashing their natural ice for a second while I laughed. "Seriously, Kel. This isn't right- okay. Listen. If you offend them or make it obvious you've changed, then they will suspect something. And they will watch you, closely. And you won't get any time without them watching you. And you will be able to do.... less."

"Ah." No mysteries of what she meant, there.

"So act normal, Kelyon. As normal as you can, without betraying the image of being absurdly abnormal."

"Make up your mind, you mad dragon."

"Don't!" Her voice became a snake bite, furious and poisonous. "We're pretty sure no one can speak the Iron tongue, but we don't know that Lorryn's spell is a veritable secret. Someone could hear everything you're saying, Kelyon."

Katha had become paranoid, and I told her that.

The dragon suddenly sighed, and leaned like a discarded rag doll over the neck of the grel. "Kelyon, this isn't a pit stop. You spent time in the human's lands, you spent time in the Halfblood's lands. You aren't going anywhere else, unless you think you'd be welcome among the dragons. And you wouldn't." She sighed again, and I got the impression she didn't think a word was sinking in. Grabbing my grel's reins- the damn thing didn't even start, simply let out its own tired sigh and slowed abruptly- she leaned between the two and looked into my eyes. I tried to appear haughty and enraged, and pulled back- she must have realized it was for show, because she didn't mention it, only pulled back with a start.

"This is going to be your home. Forever. It's not a game. It's not a joke. It's not a vacation. You're home, Kelyon. After everything, you're home."

Here, without my Halfblood half-friends, Kala or Haldor, and surrounded by people who thought I should be currently raping the only person worth anything to me here, I didn't FEEL like I was home.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

I like the document editor in FanFiction and Fictionpress. It makes life easier. (I just noticed them a little while back, by the way; I have no clue how long this particular feature's been here....) Back when I had just joined, kiddies, we had to put in annoying little html tags that wouldn't work when you uploaded the file even though it says in the uploading page it will and couldn't edit the documents after we'd uploaded them to make them work. Kudos, people in charge...

Rhiadora / Kathakareal

So this is odd

The painful realization

That all has gone wrong and

Nobody cares at all

Nobody cares at all

So you've buried all of lover's clothes and

Burned the letters lover wrote

But it doesn't make it any better...

--Dashboard Confessional, "Brilliant Dance"

Keman drew in behind me, his blue wings spread out against the blue sky. Beautiful. Letting him overcome me, I ducked down, flipped over, and caught his four talons in my own.

_:Ah, Dora. Unfortuantly, this ISN'T our mating-dance.:_

Too true. Damn. I let go of his claws and dropped towards the earth, snapping out my wings and flipping back over to catch the sweet wind beneath my wings. The earth beneath me shrank away, from rocks to mountains, from trees to forests, and higher. I rose above Keman, then pumped in front of him. _:You think Katha took them back to the elves?:_

The other dragon- my mate- caught up gradually. _:No. Shana does; I think Katha'd be smarter than that. You can never tell, though.:_

I agreed with Shana, then, and of course, you know by now. Congradulations. Anyway, I had met Kathakareal, and had no illusions about her intelligence. Too trusting, too uninitiated to the ways of elves and demons. And we were checking to make sure Lashana was wrong, to make sure the elves Kelyon and Haldor were still wandering in the wilderness or, if they were among the other Elven Lords, to drag them away before more damage was done and to knock some sense into Kathakareal.

To protect the humans and Halfbloods. It was still a little difficult to think of Shana and the others as people, and listening to Keman talking about them as he would some of the Kin was a little disturbing, frankly. To think that I was no longer a part of my old Lair- the only Lair I had ever known- because other dragons thought the same way I did was quite a bit disturbing. And to think, I had done it all for a male- just as mother had always told me I would.

My heart sunk, thinking of my mother. At least Keman, though he lost his sister, still had Alara on his side. My last memory of my mother involved a furious dragon, curled around my youngest syboling and watching the daughter who had come crashing in and lured away her mate flying towards the Halfbloods and their war. She would be sure her wayward offspring didn't return, even if the Wizards and their pet humans were dragged to the earth and my name became ruin.

_:Dora?:_ Keman moved a little closer to me, then pulled away, flapping down hard. _:We're there. Look down.:_

I did, then pulled back hastily. _:Keman, we came from the west. Kelyon and Haldor would have come from the east- this isn't the city we would find them in.:_ My mate and I had been spying for quite some time in the elven lands to the east before a runner had taken this priority to us- and I had expected a much longer flight. As it was, high above the elves, so that they would see nothing more susicious than a pair of black dots that could just as easily be large birds, we had barely traveled half the distance I would have preferred to go.

_:Kelyon and Haldor aren't important enough for the news to have reached us yet, love,:_ replied Keman, sounding proud of himself. _:But it should be here, by now. We'll find out soon.:_ We shifted to Great Kites, black and white plumage standing starkly from the sky, and descended as swiftly as we could to the ground, landing next to each other. I shifted first, into a young human with short brown hair and a pleasant enough face. Keman became, of course, my master, tall and ethereal, a lesser Lord.

"Come on," he said, walking towards the city. I followed right behind him.

"Kelyon and Haldor? Yeah, I've heard rumors about them."

I stayed silent, but Keman leaned forward, feigning mere earnest interest. "Do you believe these rumors?" he asked, almost off-hand.

"I suppose I do. Why would someone spread false rumors about some elves no one cares about? Now, Dyran came back to life at least seven times, twice having defeated the Halfbloods, but never Kelyon and Haldor. Most people don't even know who they are, and those who do need a little help to remember. I remember 'em- my sister has a very pretty little friend who's supposed to marry one of them; Kelyon, I think. Anyway, I saw him once- his family's not bad off, compared to some, but he's not the nicest-looking of all elves- may as well marry a human." The Lesser Lord we were talking to looked like he was about to spit on the floor, but we were in a fairly nice inn, so he refrained. I was glad- humans weren't really taken into consideration when one was aiming.

"Well. Thank you." Keman stood up, deftly paid both for his drink and his companion's, and gestured to me. "It was a pleasure to talk to you."

_:Like shit it was. Are you convinced, Keman?:_ That was our fifth time hearing the same report- yeah, there were rumors they were back, but nothing concrete; why would they lie, though? It seemed that the coincidence was too ironic- they go missing from the Citadel, and supposedly reappear here.

_:He had said there were rumors about them, not that they were- okay, their back.: _Keman wasn't good at admitting he was wrong, but then, he was a young male. _:I just can't believe Katha would be that STUPID, though. How could she come back to us after that?:_

I couldn't believe how ignorant my mate could be. _:She could if she didn't plan to come back, Keman.: _I was trying to break it to him gently, but I'm afraid a little mockery got into my tone. _:If she's an outlaw among outlaws, then she can do whatever she wants.:_

_:But- but- she's KIN!: _cried Keman, sounding violated.

_:Not anymore.: _I'm afraid I bore no special love to Kathakareal, the dragon who would end up ruining everything. _:Never again.:_

Kelyon, I realized after a day or two of travel, didn't much like grel. The first day, he rode without too much complaint. The second, he had returned to his room in the wagon and was reportedly playing cards with a handful of human overseers and lesser elves who had traveled with the group to care for grel and other purposes. I figured it was safe, so long as the other elves were there; he would be with people of his own social class, and that was saying something. I, for one, didn't so much mind not having someone to talk to. After the first half of the second day, I turned in the grel I rode onto walk behind the last wagon and went on foot, Keman assuring them I wouldn't run away. Even when I reportedly vanished, he assured them I was fine. No one noticed a far-away bird that looked red-tinted in the afternoon light strive for the sky, or drop to the earth an hour or so later after flying high in the air but close enough to the caravan to keep an eye on it. Of course, I was too far away for them to see me make a kill, drag it to a clearing, and devour it as fast as I could, not even pausing to scrape the last bits from the red-tinted bones. They were too far away to see me spread huge wings and leap back into the sky, working with the wind and shooting over the wood, straining to catch up with them again.

Then I had landed and was walking with them and no one was any the wiser but myself and perhaps Kelyon. I was getting as comfortable in the form of Kath as I was in the Halfblood form I had taken at the Citadel; perhaps more so, even. She was certainly a more fun character, because she was far more different, a new act, a deception. I trotted next to the wagon, humming to myself an out-of-tune hymn I was making up on the spot. An elf sat in the back of the wagon and watched me; I knew he was one of the Lesser Lords when he tapped a finger in time to the song. When I got to the end and began to repeat the chorus, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out something that looked a lot like a flute, with a few extra holes. I had never seen an Elven Lord, not even the lowest of the low, play an instrument; at times, humans were called for such entertainment, but never elves. He put the thing to his mouth, though, and as quietly as he could play it, played the tune with me. It was absurdly brilliant, how close he came to the tune having heard it only once.

I caught up to the wagon and sat on the edge; he let me without any open revulsion. "God, it's lonely, here with no one I know. They're my father's grel, though, and I'm here to care for them. Had to leave the wife, the brother, my whole family, and they probably need me." Seeming to just realize who I was, he turned and smiled a little. "I'm sorry. I never learned whether you speak Elvish."

"I... speak it a little," I lied, forcing myself to stutter. He pulled out a flask of something that smelled like alchohol and drank from it, putting it back without offering me any. Well, he was an Elven Lord. "Though not well. Not at all well."

"Hmm. You know, you hear that humans used to have their own languages, but I never knew any language of Elvish. I wonder if it's hard to learn."

"Difficult," was all I responded. He nodded, then rose and walked back into the wagon; I dropped off the edge and resumed walking. Before I left casual earshot, however, I heard him try and give me his name. I tried to catch back up, but he was gone, and I didn't see him at all after that.

Lyon's keep wasn't too far away from the more eastern of the villages. Kyrtian's Hold loomed above us before sunset.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

Kelyon

..Ooooh...

Yeah. So, how long's it been, guys? Two, three, four, five, six.... Many many moons. o0! Fics have come and fics have gone, and now again I update.

Heheh. Okay, guys, I'll try and still update this in spuriatic bursts, but not much and not fast. So there. () Enjoy.

I'm falling even more in love with you

Letting go of all I've held on to

I'm standing here until you make me move

Hanging by a moment here with you

I'm living for the only thing I know

I'm running but not quite sure where to go

I'm don't know what I'm diving into

Just hanging by a moment here with you

Just hanging by a moment!

Hanging by a moment

Hanging by a moment

Hanging by a moment here with you!

--Lifehouse, "Hanging by a Moment"

I realized by the end of the second day that I had developed quite a distaste for wagons. I didn't know, for the life of me, why we didn't gate to a closer Hold and THEN ride to Kyrtian's Keep, but then, the wagons weren't too far a cry from the Holds themselves. I actually pitied the grel who had to drag all the Elven Lords' crap the leagues from Kyndreth's place to Kyrtian's. Of course, after years of working for the fat Elven Lords just like Lyon, I could relate to them.

Pathetic.

I supposed, when we got to the western Hold, that the wagons had been enchanted or the road done likewise so the damned caravan reached its goal quicker, because the revolting animals didn't seem to pull the heavy wagons nearly fast enough as it would take. Katha said nothing about it, though, not even in an undertone, so I kept my mouth shut. Those little bursts of wisdom are often the greatest and always the least noticed.

Haldor was waiting for us. I had expected as much. He gave me a curt, cold nod, which was returned with like propriety, which was also expected. He bowed low to Lyon, who couldn't notice the disgust that apparently only I could read. Nateli, the Greater Lord shadow to Lyon, studied him suddenly, intently, over a strong but oddly hawklike nose. The scrutiny was sudden, fierce, and swiftly ended with such abruptness that for a moment, I couldn't tell whether I had imagined the whole thing or not. Katha, however, had obviously noticed something. Her eyes burned with fire that made them flash, for the barest of seconds, from brown-black to the bright blue of their true nature. She forced her glare from the back of Nateli's head with obvious effort.

Katha's telepathy was very useful, even if I couldn't hear a damn thing. _Tell me about it later, _I thought 'at' her, feeling her gaze traveling over me and seeing the smallest of acknowledging nods. Haldor saw it, too; he raised his right eyebrow just slightly, and I met his eyes, wishing the two of us were telepathic. It would make it much easier.

I got the first glance I had ever gotten of the war-crazed, mad Kyrtian V'dyll Lord Prastaran that evening. I must admit, it was slightly disappointing. He escorted his mother, a lovely if aging Elven Lady in flowing vermillion silks that mirrored the exact color of the sinking sun, with a human man shadowing his steps like Katha shadowed mine and, come to think of it, Nateli shadowed Lyon.

"My Lords," Kyrtian demurred, bowing low, particularly to Lord Lyon. "Lord Kelyon and Lord Haldor, I am thrilled to have you in my home. V'kel Lyon Lord Kyndreth. And- I don't think I know your name."

"I am Krayer Lord Nateli, my Lord," purred Nateli, bowing shallowly. Kyrtian bowed back. The corner of Katha's mouth twitched, but I was the only one to notice.

"Of course. The Elven Lord who led the battle against the Halfbloods. It is an honor. And may I present, gentlemen, my Lady Mother, V'dyll Lydiell Lady Prastaran?"

The Lady smiled in a dazzling way. The Lord Kyndreth was grinning like a tiger with prey in its sights when he lowered his head in a short, shallow bow, murmuring pleasantries. "How do you do," fluted the Lady, then backed behind her son like a painfully proper Elven Lady.

At that moment, I truly wished it were Kala up there, grinning and speaking with authority in the matters, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her husband; not the frail Elven flower and her son. Every second of these peoples' lives was a play, a drama, a poem of which every line had to be executed and acted out and then discarded without a moment's flaw. It wasn't a cage, it was a maze; an eternal maze with no exit, only an entrance, and you had to keep moving and keep moving, trying to find a goal that didn't exist. Elves weren't great, all-powerful beings who deserved to live and lord over humans. They- we- were all rats in self-made mazes.

I had spent years waiting and wanting hopelessly to come back here. Now I only wanted to get away.

At dinner, I hardly noticed what I was eating. It was funny- after years and years of the same dried beef and flatbread, then the pitiful excuse for my own cooking, then the roughed or stolen meals at the Citadel, one would think I would cherish the brilliant Elven cooking. But even the first meal, as wonderful as it had been, had been much underappreciated. The third dinner had been flat-out bitter.

"Three days, and they were making wedding plans?" Haldor asked, contriving to sound unaffected but incredulous. "Ancestors, they were just waiting for your reappearance, weren't they?"

I sighed, and shoveled a little more food in before answering. "As to that, what did you expect? The lovely Lady in question is from a very un-lovely family. An only child; infertility and stillbirths run rampant in her family and their magic is barely enough to make illusions. She couldn't get any other fiance, and her family WAS waiting for me to reappear. Apparently, they aren't rich enough to have a large dowager and very much don't want the indignity of having a daughter sitting around at home, passing out whenever she tries making roses prettier."

Haldor sighed, too, and leaned back; I noticed he hadn't eaten very much, but he was eyeing the food with the air of someone who half-expected it to bite back. I felt a twinge of unreasonable guilt, but what was I supposed to have done? _As to that, Mother, Father, I was hoping I could marry this guy...._

One of Lord Kyrtian's employed Lesser Lords, Tenebrinth, leaned across the table to tell a horror story so traumatic and good-humored that it had to be a lie about how his parents had engaged him to the most horrible witch he had ever met, emphasized when his wife, Lady Seryana, snatched the cloth napkin from her lap and hit him with it. Tenebrinth, the retainer Lord Selazian, and the other Lesser Lord employee, Pelanel, with their three wives, sat across from myself, Haldor, Katha, sitting between us and, at the end, the silent and solemn presence of Lord Nateli.

The Lesser Lords of this household had been a bit of a shock. Haldor and I had been working for Greater Lords before we were abducted by the humans, and I still remembered vividly what it had been like, working until the magic drain sent me staggering for my room, snarling at anyone who got in my way. Across the table, Tenebrinth dissolved into laughter, catching his wife in his arms and kissing her, completing the story with silent words. Her stomach was slightly bulged with a child curled inside it.

Pelanel ignored this, in fact shoving Tenebrinth into his mate and leaning across the table as the laughing elf righted himself. "So, what do they say of the mad Lord Kyrtian, out in the world, nowadays? You've been worrying about this, I'm sure."

Haldor, as usual, was quiet, and Katha conformed to the general form of humanity and tried to blend into the background. She had insisted, quietly but forcefully, in joining us, to keep us from fucking it up, and this time, Lyon and the others hadn't been entirely shocked by the unorthodoxy. Kyrtian had smiled, just briefly, and the human shadow behind him grinned openly, bowing his head to hide it.

I answered Pelanel's question as politely as I could without purely lying. "I cannot say I haven't given the Lord's reputation some thought, though by the looks of things, his Hold is well-managed." Well-managed, my ass. Kyrtian had a happy, magical paradise, it seemed, where brightly-colored birds sang as they did in the homes of the heroes of ballads- his retainers were healthy and good-humored, his mother was gentle and kind and very Ladylike; hell, his humans were even in remarkable shape, not scarred or bruised like they were in most houses. And if he had politely requested we not journey out to the grounds- where, doubtlessly, the pitiable field workers would shatter the illusion- without permission or guidance; hell, it was HIS Hold. I was just glad there was no bloodshed where I could see it.

"Of course it is," said Selazian, almost arrogantly. "His grandparents worked hard to get him the influence he has today, and he's got his Lady Mother around to keep anything from getting out of hand on account of juvenile idiocy."

"And, of course, us," added Pelanel, good-humored, as he leaned back into his chair and drank deeply from his wineglass. "And Gel-"

"Do shut up," Pelanel's wife said gently, suddenly, and the Lesser Lord's mouth shut with a snap. His two friends laughed- forced laughter?- to cover the awkward moment, then Tenebrinth began to talk, again.

I actually enjoyed the company of the other elves, but the pupil of one of Katha's eyes had remained fixed on Nateli throughout the meal, and as the food cooled and my stomach lurched at the thought of it, I stood gracefully and inclined by head at my companions, pitching my voice to be heard by the rest of the table, as well- the Greater Lords and the Lady. "I regret missing out on this remarkable meal, and I consider myself unfortunate, losing such animate company," I driveled, "but I'm afraid I must plead exhaustion, and beg leave to retire to the rooms the Lord Kyrtian has to generously offered." A little flamboyant, perhaps, but serviceable.

"Sleep well, Lord Kelyon," Kyrtian responded cheerfully. The Lesser Lords and their wives raised their glasses briefly; Haldor shrugged and grinned. He wouldn't accompany me, of course; he would come later. Katha rose with me and once more became my shadow, unnoticeable as any human.

My rooms- a large bedroom with a small bedroll for Katharyn beside the great pile of pillows and blankets on a gilded- or solid gold- frame where I was supposed to actually sleep, a large and gorgeous bathroom, and a relaxed sitting room that was tiny but held three chairs for casual guests-among-guests. Katha and I stopped in the first room, each of us folding into the chairs, while the door swung closed behind us.

"I assume that you aren't going to tell what's so very wrong until Haldor gets here," I said, shifting in the chair and finally pulling the too-nice, silk shirt off and letting it fall to the floor.

"Of course not," she replied, watching as I walked out of the sitting room and towards the other two, working at the dragon-shaped belt clasp. "And speaking of Haldor- getting undressed rather early, aren't we?" Her grin was wicked and feral; she reclined back on the chair and folded her long arms behind her head.

"I, my twisted little dragon, am taking a bath," I told her, matter-of-factly, tossing the belt at her head. She caught it with ease, tossing it on top of my shirt in one fluid motion. "I've been on the bloody wagon and getting covered in dust for too long; and truth be told, it's one of the few things I've truly missed about this place."

"You didn't bathe on the trip?" Katha cocked her head, slightly; the only time she had actually gotten in one of the wagons, aside from sleeping, was when she used the enormous, ornamental powder-wagon pulled by three disgruntled-looking grel and kept immaculate by magical means. Most Elven Lords used the bath three times a day, complaining loudly about the dust.

"I was covered pretty much head-to-toe in iron, Katha," I told her, matter-of-factly. "That place was buzzing with magic- magic to get the water flowing, magic to keep it hot, magic to keep out the dust, magic to keep the mirror from fogging, magic to do bloody everything. I would have combusted."

She chuckled, leaning back in the chair. "Alright," she acknowledged. Then her face grew more serious; in the hard angular features of the Iron People she was imitating, it was nearly frightening. "But be quick, okay? This is really important; it can't wait."

The corner of my mouth twitched. I hated it when she looked like that; it was going to be bad news.

Her name was Lady Vasarey, and she was, in the tradition of all elves, beautiful. Her hair came down to her hips, her face was perfectly sculpted, her body finely tuned and well-proportioned. No, her looks weren't the problem. They never were for elves. It was her mind- her painfully vacant, somewhat twisted mind.

Far more than myself, I felt for her parents. Her mother had been infertile, and neither her mother nor father had the skills to repair that flaw via magic. So they had paid most of their wealth to a wizard to simply get one chance at having an heir. They came up, not only with a female, but with Lady Vasarey.

She had a very narrow vision of the world, was the first thing. It included her, and a lot of people who weren't, to her mind, any more than minions to serve her floating in circles around her. It also included her father, the only person she considered as much a person as her, and in fact more; she bowed her head to him in anything he had to say, and would do anything she was told to do, enthusiastically if it involved dressing up and showing off her good looks. Beyond fashion, I don't think she could comprehend a wider world. In fashion, she was queen right under Lord Triana- though Triana, I'm sure, loathed her as only a woman who strove for power and prestige could loath a woman who floated about aimlessly and brainlessly. Hell, despite her deviousness, her cruel streak, and her knack for deception, I'd still marry Triana over Vasarey, and let her stay Lord of her manor, besides.

Looking at the woman I was told to marry the third day after I had reappeared from decades missing, one would think her a kind and compassionate woman. She used impeccable manners, and showed a skin-deep cover of respect for people she met, particularly men. But she couldn't see humans, or most other people underneath her in power, as actual life- and certainly not intelligent life- and was unwilling to treat them accordingly. Her slaves cowered before her, terrified that the vague, airy demands she had of them had differed in some way from what they carried out. It irritated me that this was the thing that made me most uncomfortable. Hell, some of the damned humans I'd worked for had been just as sickeningly cruel- and most elves I had served under had. I suppose, eventually, when the real world is shoved down your throat and what you've been told up society's ass, the lines between "born superior and deserving to rule" and "born inferior and suited only to serve" blur.

In forty-eight hours, I was going to have to marry that woman. I eyed the pile of iron jewelry and wondered what it would be like to escape; run away.

_And go where?_ the annoying little voice of logic in the back of my head taunted. _You have no one who would take you in. You would drag Haldor out of here and everything Katha gave up would be for nothing. You're trapped._

Trapped. Trapped, captured, enslaved, to one race after another, never-endingly. The slightly-dirty water drained from the edge-gilded porcelain bathtub as I pulled myself out of it with a minimum of splashing. A rat in a maze, thrown from Elvenlords to humans to Halfbloods to Elvenlords, and who cares what I think?

I snatched a towel from the stack and wrapped it around me, shaking out my hair. I didn't really need it; I could dry myself off with the minuscule magics I had learned from my mother and Haldor, but I didn't know whether cleaner clothes had been brought up and I had retained a bit of modesty where Katha was concerned. She was curled up on her sleeping roll when I strode back in, folding the clothing she must have gotten from downstairs. Seeing me, she grinned, and nodded to a pile of much finer stuff that must have been mine.

"Lyon singled out Haldor, he's been talking to him all night," she said, brightly. "I just told the girl down in the laundry room, time and time again, that you sent me down here to get our clothing from the caravan." She grinned wickedly, and her voice returned to the stammering, uncertain tone she used with anyone but myself and Haldor. "'Master Kelyon has sent me to get the clothing, miss. The clothing. I'm to get the clothing'. If it doesn't fit, it's because she got so tired of me she shoved the first articles that came to hand at me."

It was my clothing, of course. Even if Katha had whined and poked the girl, she wouldn't have acted up so badly. My pile, however, wasn't folded; it was left on my bed for me to take care of. The laundry-girl must have expected Katha to do it for me. I, of course, wasn't nearly so thickheaded; I sat beside my own clothing and started to fold it up and put it away.

"I hope Haldor comes up here soon, though," Katha murmured after a moment. "I have a feeling..."

I looked up when she cut off; her eyes were wide and suddenly had turned the intense blue that was her true eye color, instead of the Iron People brown-black. Then she blinked, and they were human again; she glared at me and I put some distance between myself and the clothing, trying to make it look like I had never tried doing my work for myself. She snatched a comb off the table and began working on my hair, spiriting behind me and snatching for clothing to dress me in as she went. I felt her hands, rough but efficient, wrapping the white silk shirt around my already-dry chest, buttoning down the front, then continuing with a pair of brown breeches. I stood when she motioned for me to, sat when she pushed lightly on my shoulders, and obeyed the silent command that hovered between us- _silence. Stay silent. Say nothing, don't ask questions, be completely silent._

It lasted for a long time, Katha working on my wet hair, myself exerting a little bit of magic to drain the water from it. I wasn't as good as she was; I couldn't feel the magical scrying I knew must be on us right at that moment, but I could imagine the eyes staring down at us. I almost cursed, remembering the stack of abandoned iron. Right then, I wasn't considering the ill effects of our spy seeing Katha alone in the room.

My hair was completely dry and the goddamned comb hadn't caught on any tangles in the past few minutes, but for a long moment, Katha kept rhythmatically brushing, focusing inward. I didn't bother her until I was afraid that it would start to look suspicious, us sitting there with obvious chores to do, not moving from a task already completed. "Katharyn," I said, firmly, trying to emulate Lyon when he had selected a human to give orders to. "That's enough. Get to the clothing, now."

She didn't meet my eyes or say anything, only moved to the half-demolished pile of my clothing and began folding and putting it away. After a moment, she paused, her eyes flashing blue again, then relaxed and settled down.

"Oh, lord," she hissed. "Gods damn her."

"Who?" The voice came from the door, and both of us turned; a grin spread across my face at the familiar sight. Haldor crossed through the sitting room in a few long strides, sprawled down beside me on the bed, and kissed me, letting one moment hang where we did nothing more than hold onto each other.

Katha cleared her throat, gently, and Haldor actually chuckled throatily as he pulled back. The dragon shook her head disgustedly, then perched on the thin wooden chair that faced the bed, the humor vanishing from her face suddenly. "I believe, my friends, we have a problem."

"Have we ever not had a problem?" I asked, shrugging. Haldor was simply watching Katha, waiting for her to go on.

"I'm serious, Kelyon. The man who followed Lyon around had a dragonshadow." This was, apparently, supposed to be significant. I had no idea what a dragonshadow was, and I believe the complete lack of shock, coupled with my silence, if not the silence from the taciturn Haldor, might have communicated this. "Who was he? Why is he here?"

I met Haldor's eyes; he didn't know what this was about, either. "His name is Krayer Lord Nateli. He's a guest at Lyon's house."

"I thought so," she whispered, sounding frustrated. "Lord, my ass. Lady Nateli, gentlemen. Lady Myrenateli."

For a long moment, my heart stopped. "Myre."

"Hell yes, Myre," she replied, snarling now. "Dragonshadows... you can see them on shape-shifted dragons, if you know how. She was spying on us, just now... Watching Kelyon and I. For a very long time."

Haldor spoke again for the first time since he had come in. "Does he know about you, Katha?"

There was a moment's pause, then she shrugged. "No way to tell. We just have to be on our guards. She's probably not very happy with you two.... She almost died because of you, then her plans were ruined by you. Be on your guards; no more slips. Act like normal elves, alright?"

I nodded; Haldor shifted uncomfortably. Katha and I stared at him, waiting for him to speak; after a moment, he folded his hands together on his lap and met Katha's eyes. "He almost... Ancestors. After the other three had retired, and Lyon had let off of me a little, he talked to me."

I put my hand on his shoulder, wondering what the hell had shaken the other elf; Katha wasn't half so subtle. "What the hell did she say?" she snapped, furiously.

"He talked mostly about the journey here.... About how you two acted strangely, and he wondered what all we went through. I gave him our story, the one we made up, and he seemed interested and kept asking for details, like what Calleach looked like, and what the horses we stole looked like; and how we got all the way from the west side of the Elven lands to the east without stumbling over any towns." Haldor's voice cracked a little; he still didn't talk very much and talking too much hurt his throat. He continued, however, without prompting. "I got it all out the best I could. He seemed satisfied; asked me if I would go to his rooms later and tell him the story in more detail. I told him I had other plans, he made an arrangement for tomorrow evening without.... I didn't even get to say anything." He smiled a little, ruefully, ironically. "The plans were made, and I just... agreed."

"Call it off," snapped Katha, her brow furrowing.

Haldor shrugged. "So we don't need to learn anything?"

"Nothing worth you dying," Katha growled. "Listen, Haldor- she doesn't want anything from you, she wants you to die. She's not... brilliant, from what I've heard. For a dragon, she's flatly stupid. She doesn't, I can guarantee, want information or anything like that from you; she's pissed at you and wants you to be a shrieking puddle of elf-colored tar."

"You're certain it's Myre?"

"No," replied the dragon.

"Yes," I said half a breath after.

Brilliant green and brown-black eyes suddenly landed on me, turned sharply away from each other. Katha, of course, was the one who spoke, a little dryly and a little overly cynically; "And how are you so certain, Kel?"

"Lord Nateli was the elf who supposedly led the elves against the Halfbloods. Came over with information, gave it to the armies, had his nose rubbed in a little dirt when the attack failed." I shrugged; it wasn't like my days had been so action-filled that I was wasting time, hearing about the people who were going to be traveling with me, and sharing quarters with me for a few days. "Doesn't sound like Keman, to me."

Katha shook her head. "Nor me. But... it could be another of the dragons who think that Alara and Kalama and the others are doing horrible things, trying to trap them."

Haldor shrugged. "If that were true, what would they care about us for?"

I elaborated for him. "They wouldn't even know we were from the Halfblood colony to the east; if they saw your dragonshadow, they would-"

"I can hide my dragonshadow," Katha said, cutting me off. "But yeah, if they saw it, they'd be after me; if not, there would be no point being after any of the three of us. So... we're pretty certain it's Myre."

"Cut off visiting him," I told Haldor, catching his gaze and tempering my words to keep them from sounding hard or commanding. "He- she- is going after you first because she kept trying to get you to help her, back the last time she saw us. But Katha's right; she's too stupid to want anything but to kill us."

"Aggravating bitch," Haldor snarled, but he was nodding.

For another moment, there was silence; Katha and I nodded at the harsh sentiment but said nothing in reply. At last, the dragon broke the silence. "So," Katha said, looking a lot better now that she had that off her chest, "tell us of your lovely bride-to-be, Kel."

Damned dragon. Hell knew she would be the one to bring that up. "She's insufferable, and you bloody well know it," I snapped, Haldor glared at the dragon, and Katha laughed light-heartedly. "She has the brains of Myre, the self-opinions of Calleach, and will probably be completely content living out the rest of her life sewing and dancing, while dragging me down like the anchor she bloody is." I sighed, then leaned back, head resting against Haldor's chest. "There is quite a bit I would choose to be doing, nights, over being forced to be breeding an heir."

Katha tossed two iron bracelets onto the bed, then rose. "Don't be seen," she warned; the bracelets, with luck, would prevent us from being visible to scrying. I slid one over my wrist; Haldor did the same. "And I," the dragon continued, "am going for a walk. Leave the door open when you go, Haldor, so I know when I can come back and get some sleep."

He nodded, but his attention was already a little caught up elsewhere. The door slammed shut behind her, and I leaned against the bed, feeling the other elf's lips press against mine and his heart hammering against my chest.


End file.
